•s 


UNUSED  POWERS 


By 
RUSSELL  H.  CONWELL,  D.D. 

Author  of  "  Acres  of  Diamonds,"  "  The  Angel's 
Lily,"  "  Why  Lincoln  Laughed"  etc.,  etc. 


NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

LONDON     AND     EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  1922,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New    York:  158    Fifth    Avenue 

Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 

London:    21  Paternoster    Square 

Edinburgh:  75     Princes     Street 


FOREWORD 

THE  sermons  included  in  this  volume 
were  delivered  recently  to  large  congre- 
gations in  the  Baptist  Temple,  Phila- 
delphia. They  can  truthfully  be  called 
"Sermons  That  Have  Helped  the  Masses." 
Back  of  every  sermon  delivered  by  Dr.  Con- 
well  is  the  spirit  of  helpfulness.  The  thous- 
ands of  letters  he  is  receiving  constantly, 
telling  of  the  uplift,  enrichment  and  inspira- 
tion his  sermons  have  given,  are  an  indication 
not  simply  of  his  popularity,  but  of  the  fact 
that  his  utterances  have  found  ready  response 
in  the  needy  and  hungry  soul. 

Dr.  Conwell's  influence  in  his  pulpit  min- 
istry is  of  more  than  local  character.  It  ex- 
tends literally  "to  the  ends  of  the  earth."  On 
two  recent  Sundays  in  October  an  account 
was  taken  of  those  present  in  the  Temple 
from  places  other  than  Philadelphia  and 
Pennsylvania,  including  only  those  who  gave 
their  cards  to  Dr.  Conwell  at  the  close  of  the 
service,  with  the  following  result : 

Massachusetts 4          Sweden 3 

California 6          Scotland 2 

Arizona 2          Japan   7 

3 


20731 ?  0 


FOREWORD 


Canada  6 

England 4 

Germany 4 

Norway 1 

China 1 

Persia 4 

India 3 

Nepal 1 

Michigan 3 

Delaware 5 

Maine 1 

Texas 3 

Washington  State ...    4 

France  2 

New  Jersey 16 

Mexico .1 


Armenia 2 

Egypt 1 

South  Africa 2 

New  York 13 

Washington,  D.  C. .  8 

Ohio 3 

Missouri 1 

New  Mexico 3 

Oregon 4 

Vermont 1 

New  Hampshire. .  .  1 

Cuba 3 

Hawaii    2 

Italy    3 

Russia 2 

Poland  .                    .  9 


All  of  Dr.  Conwell's  discourses  abound 
with  observations  of  his  varied  career  as 
student,  soldier,  schoolmaster,  lawyer,  re- 
porter, traveller,  author,  lecturer,  educator 
and  preacher.  His  intimate  association  with 
some  of  the  country's  greatest  men,  includ- 
ing Beecher,  Whittier,  Longfellow,  Holmes, 
Bayard,  Taylor,  Wendell  Phillips,  Garfield, 
Blaine,  Emerson,  Grant,  Gough,  and  many 
others,  provides  a  wealth  of  information  on 
which  he  freely  draws.  In  his  travels  abroad 
he  met  Gladstone,  Garibaldi,  Tennyson, 
Dickens,  Ruskin  and  other  eminent  states- 
men, writers  and  public  men. 


This  volume,  therefore,  will  place  within 
reach  of  both  layman  and  preacher  a  store- 
house of  illustration,  historic  fact  and  Chris- 
tian philosophy,  the  rich  harvest  of  help  and 
inspiration  gleaned  from  the  author's  life  of 
service  in  the  uplift  of  humanity. 

CHABLES  E.  MILLER. 

Philadelphia,  Penna. 


Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  UNUSED  POWERS                 .  .      9 

II.  MAN  AND  His  BURNING  BUSH  .     23 

III.  No  OTHER  PLACE  TO  Go     .  .     37 

IV.  DISGUISED  VICTORIES  .        .  .53 

V.  POWER  TO  RISE  AGAIN        .  .     65 

VI.  WILL  You  BE  MISSED?       .  .     81 

VII.  A  WELCOMING  SMILE         .  .  101 

VIII.  OUTSIDE  AND  INSIDE   .        .  .  115 

IX.  THE  OPEN  DOOR        .        .  .130 

X.  WITHOUT  PAY    ....  144 


I 

UNUSED  POWERS 

HOW  much  more  a  man  can  do  than  he 
thinks  he  can!    How  far  short  we  all 
come  of  what  it  was  possible  for  us  to 
have  accomplished.     My  text  presents  that 
idea.     It  is  found  in  the  eighth  verse  of  the 
nineteenth  chapter  of  First  Kings,   in  the 
account  of  Elijah's  journey  when  he  was  flee- 
ing from  Jezebel,  and  going  as  he  thought 
into  the  desert  to  die. 

The  poor  man  thought  he  had  reached  the 
end,  that  there  was  nothing  more  worth  living 
for  in  the  world.  The  poor  old  man  had  tried 
to  serve  the  Lord  all  his  life,  had  sacrificed 
and  suffered,  his  friends  had  betrayed  and  left 
him,  his  enemies  had  conquered,  righteousness 
seemed  to  be  at  an  ebb,  and  unrighteousness  at 
the  flow.  Poor  old  discouraged  man  gone  into 
the  desert  alone.  Alone?  No,  he  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  multitude  of  witnesses  he  did 
not  see,  and  he  ought  to  have  felt  that,  for  he 
had  told  that  young  man  years  before  that  the 

9 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Lord  would  open  his  eyes  and  he  would  see  a 
company  of  angels.  Now  he  thinks  he  is  all 
alone.  It  is  strange  that  a  Christian  man  who 
has  faith  for  so  many  years  can  fall  into  these 
intermittent  conditions  of  discouragement. 

What  would  we  not  be  if  every  hour  of 
every  week  and  day  we  had  done  our  utmost? 
The  possibilities  of  man  reach  out  beyond  our 
vision,  beyond  our  imagination.  What  would 
we  get  if  we  only  did  our  best? 

The  poor  old  man  lays  down  under  the 
juniper  tree,  and  said,  "O  that  I  could  die. 
I  have  no  friends  left.  I  have  nothing  to  do. 
The  Lord  has  defeated  me  at  every  turn  I 
have  taken.  He  does  not  want  me  on  the 
earth.  My  friends  don't  care  for  me  any 
more.  I  am  only  in  the  way.  Lord,  let  me 
go.  I  am  weary  of  life." 

The  text  says  that  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
came  and  said,  "Arise  and  eat;  because  the 
journey  is  too  great  for  thee."  The  angel  fell 
in  with  Elijah.  That  is  often  a  safe  method 
to  fall  in  with  an  insane  person.  I  see  the 
demented  almost  every  day.  The  only  thing 
you  can  do  with  them  is  to  fall  in  at  first  with 
their  hallucination. 

A  man  with  a  pistol  came  into  my  study 
here,  and  said  that  the  Lord  had  sent  him  to 

10 


UNUSED  POWERS 


shoot  me.  I  had  often  been  told  in  years  past 
that  the  only  way  to  do  is  to  agree  with  such 
maniacs.  I  said,  "That  is  all  right,  only  you 
came  on  the  wrong  day.  If  you  had  looked 
up  the  date  to  see  when  you  were  to  come  you 
would  come  to-morrow."  He  said  he  had  not 
looked  at  the  calendar,  and  I  called  his  atten- 
tion to  the  date,  and  said,  "Why  this  is  not 
to-morrow.  You  came  the  wrong  day.  You 
may  come  again  to-morrow.  Leave  the  pistol 
here,  and  come  back  to-morrow."  He  gave 
me  the  pistol  to  keep  and  I  put  it  in  my  desk, 
then  called  the  officer,  who  took  him  away. 

While  I  relate  that  simply  as  a  personal  ex- 
perience it  represents  an  important  thought. 
The  angel  of  God  seems  to  fall  in  with  the 
weaknesses  of  people,  and  will  not  contradict 
them  outright,  for  there  are  some  people  so 
stubborn  that  they  will  contradict  an  angel  of 
God  if  they  have  the  opportunity.  Elijah 
was  one  of  that  character,  one  of  those  de- 
termined, strong,  decisive  men  who  feared  not 
kings  or  queens  when  he  was  in  the  right 
spirit.  Now  he  is  altogether  discouraged,  and 
the  angel  soothes  him,  and  says,  "You  think 
you  are  weak.  Now  then  prepare  yourself." 
He  partakes  of  that  simple  meal. 

How  long  a  man  can  exist  without  food  we 

11 


UNUSED  POWERS 


do  not  realize.  I  saw  a  man  last  week  in  the 
mines  of  West  Virginia,  who  said  he  was  en- 
closed by  an  explosion,  and  was  there  thirty- 
one  days.  While  there  was  excellent  spring 
water  dripping  down,  and  he  had  plenty  of 
that  to  drink,  he  had  no  food  except  a  piece 
of  bread  left  from  his  luncheon,  for  thirty-one 
days,  yet  he  came  out  alive,  and  in  five  days 
returned  to  his  work. 

The  text  says:  "Elijah  arose,  and  did  eat 
and  drink,  and  went  in  the  strength  of  that 
meat  forty  days  and  forty  nights  unto  Horeb, 
the  mount  of  God."  The  Lord  was  saying  to 
him,  "You  see  you  can  go  forty  days  and 
forty  nights  without  food.  Now  then  learn 
the  lesson  that  in  all  things  you  can  do  a  great 
deal  more  than  you  dream.  You  poor  dis- 
couraged old  saint,  you  have  lost  your  faith, 
and  you  are  making  your  own  life  miserable. 
You  are  avoiding  the  service  of  God  because 
you  do  not  realize  that  you  have  still  a  won- 
derful strength  for  forty  long  days  and  nights 
of  journey." 

Was  not  Elijah  ashamed  of  himself  when 
he  reached  the  end  of  that  journey  and  looked 
back,  and  said,  "There  I  was  under  the  Juni- 
per tree  asking  the  Lord  to  take  me  hence 
because  there  was  no  more  I  could  do."  Then 

12 


UNUSED  POWERS 


he  looked  back  over  forty  days,  and  said,  "I 
never  could  have  done  that  before."  Yes  he 
could.  He  could  have  done  it  any  time  if  he 
had  been  required  to  do  it,  and  had  the 
courage. 

How  much  more  we  can  do  than  we  think 
we  can  do.  There  was  a  village  in  West 
Virginia  where  poor  miners  had  lived,  and 
the  mines  were  exhausted.  It  was  a  very 
wretched  village,  so  a  gentleman  told  me. 
But  there  is  a  small  river  running  down 
through  the  mountains  toward  the  Ohio 
through  that  village.  The  people  in  the  vil- 
lage met  to  try  to  vote  for  a  schoolhouse. 
They  had  no  money,  and  finally  gave  it  up. 
They  agreed  to  hold  the  school  around  in  the 
various  rough  miners'  cottages  because  they 
could  not  build  a  schoolhouse.  One  who  was 
present  at  the  meeting,  though  not  a  native 
of  the  town,  said  to  them  after  the  meeting 
had  adjourned,  "Yes,  you  can  do  a  great  deal 
more  than  you  think  you  can.  Why  don't 
you  get  together  and  go  out  and  build  a  log 
cabin  all  yourselves.  You  will  have  a  good 
time.  You  will  enjoy  it."  They  said  they 
could  not  do  it  very  well  without  the  direction 
of  a  carpenter,  so  they  sent  down  the  Ohio 
River  for  a  carpenter  to  come  up  and  oversee 


the  work,  and  they  built  the  house  themselves. 
The  carpenter  sat  on  the  river's  bank,  and 
thought,  "If  we  could  only  saw  this  wood  we 
would  save  all  this  chopping  and  all  this 
time."  He  looked  upon  the  passing  river, 
and  thought  how  much  power  is  passing  all 
the  time,  every  minute,  power  to  saw  logs, 
power  to  dig  in  the  earth  for  coal,  power  to 
cut  up  the  stone,  and  power  to  run  railroads. 
He  said,  "There  is  great  power  passing  your 
door  every  hour."  One  or  two  of  them,  it 
seems,  acted  upon  the  suggestion.  Anyhow, 
they  put  an  undershot  water  wheel  across  that 
stream  from  bank  to  bank,  built  no  dam,  but 
let  the  wheel  down  into  the  water,  so  that  the 
water  would  run  against  the  paddles  of  the 
wheel  underneath  the  long  shaft.  Now  they 
send  their  electricity  all  over  that  region. 
Now  the  people  own  land,  and  are  wealthy. 
Now  there  are  great  factories  there,  and  ex- 
press trains  stop  at  that  city.  Now  they  have 
a  High  schoolhouse  in  which  they  invited  me 
to  come  and  lecture  next  year.  Power  going 
by  the  door  all  the  time,  constantly  passing 
them,  and  they  in  the  depths  of  poverty. 
"We  cannot  do  anything.  We  cannot  build 
a  schoolhouse."  Yet  millions  of  riches  right 
there  passing  the  door  every  day. 

14 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Wherever  a  river  runs  on  the  face  of  the 
continent  there  runs  an  equal  power,  and  the 
government  is  just  awakening  to  the  fact. 
There  has  been  introduced  in  Congress  a  bill 
to  conserve  the  wonderful  power  of  our 
streams  that  they  may  become  of  use  to  the 
public,  that  they  may  turn  out  electricity  to 
be  sent  five  hundred  miles  in  any  direction 
over  the  land  to  run  all  our  factories,  to  cook 
our  food,  to  furnish  all  our  light  and  heat  all 
our  houses  and  churches,  and  do  it  at  a  cost  of 
less  than  one  one-hundredth  of  what  it  now 
costs.  Yes,  power  is  wasted  all  around  us. 
How  much  more  the  nation  can  do  than  it 
thinks  it  can  do. 

I  was  in  a  gathering  some  little  time  ago  in 
which  there  was  present  a  person  who  was 
describing  to  me  his  experience  in  a  railway 
wreck.  He  said  the  cars  crashed  together  and 
were  torn  in  every  direction,  and  that  he  was 
there  under  the  end  of  the  railroad  bridge 
with  the  crumpled  car  all  around  him,  and  a 
car  on  top  of  the  car  in  which  he  was  enclosed. 
There  seemed  to  be  no  hope  of  his  recovery  at 
all.  It  was  something  mysterious.  He  said 
he  prayed  for  life,  and  the  reason  he  asked  me 
the  question  was  as  a  theologian:  "Do  you 
think  God  gives  especial  strength  to  men 

15 


UNUSED  POWERS 


under  special  circumstances  in  answer  to 
prayer?"  He  told  how  they  lifted  that  car, 
the  near  side  of  it,  and  tore  out  the  side  with 
their  hands,  and  with  what  miraculous 
strength  they  held  on  to  the  uplifted  car  as 
he  and  one  or  two  others  crawled  out  from 
under  it.  He  exclaimed :  "Who  would  dream 
it  possible  that  a  little  woman  like  one  of  the 
rescuers,  weighing  less  than  130  pounds, 
could  have  lifted  so  much."  We  have  read  all 
our  lives  of  the  great  things  men  have  done 
under  extreme  circumstances  by  the  power  of 
their  muscle  when  called  upon  to  do  or  die,  or 
what  is  more,  called  upon  to  do  or  some  friend 
will  die.  When  to  our  own  efforts  there  is 
added,  as  there  was  in  the  case  of  Elijah,  the 
power  of  God,  O  then  how  limitless  are  our 
possibilities. 

Remember  the  story  of  Gideon.  He  had 
so  many  thousand  men  that  he  was  sure  of 
victory,  but  really  sure  of  defeat.  When  he 
had  such  a  company  of  vigorous,  patriotic, 
well-disciplined  troops  around  him,  the  Lord 
said  to  him,  "Send  them  home.  Take  them 
down  to  the  river,  and  those  that  drink  by 
dipping  their  hands  in  the  water  and  lapping 
it  from  their  hands  as  in  a  hurry,  you  take  and 
send  the  others  home."  There  was  only  three 

16 


UNUSED  POWERS 


hundred  left,  and  I  have  always  thought  of 
that  story  as  a  discouraging  thing  for  poor 
Gideon,  general  of  a  great  army,  head  of  a 
great  nation,  with  only  three  hundred  men 
against  so  many  thousand.  Did  he  get  dis- 
couraged? No,  he  was  the  contrary  in  dispo- 
sition to  Elijah.  If  there  is  anything  on  this 
earth  that  brings  a  joy  deeper  and  higher 
than  another  it  is  to  lead  a  forlorn  hope.  I 
have  heard  of  men  who  led  in  some  of  the 
charges  in  an  army  when  it  was  called  a  "for- 
lorn hope,"  when  upon  those  few  men  de- 
pended the  fate  of  the  nation  or  the  army. 
They  to  go  on,  then  to  win — Oh  the  magnifi- 
cence of  it !  Gideon  was  blessed  of  God.  His 
heart  was  happy,  his  whole  spirit  did  praise 
the  Lord  that  his  number  was  so  reduced  that 
it  was  a  "forlorn  hope."  No  man  or  woman 
is  ever  so  happy  as  when  with  confidence  in 
God  he  or  she  leads  a  forlorn  hope.  It  is 
the  greatest  privilege  of  God  to  be  placed  in 
the  front  of  such  an  undertaking  as  that,  to 
have  other  men  say  it  cannot  be  done,  to  have 
other  men  say  it  is  too  big  for  us,  and  then  to 
take  hold  and  lift  it  into  the  sight  and  help  of 
God.  Oh  the  peace  and  joy,  the  satisfaction 
of  soul!  Young  man,  go  lead  some  forlorn 
hope  for  God,  and  find  out  what  is  the  deepest 

17 


UNUSED  POWERS 


and  richest  joy  of  human  experience.  You 
can  do  so  much  more  than  you  think  with  the 
help  of  God. 

Out  in  western  Pennsylvania  a  man  in  a 
little  town  there  told  me  that  he  had  been 
wonderfully  helped  by  the  kindness  of  a 
capitalist.  He  was  talking  of  capital  and 
labor,  as  they  had  been  greatly  agitated  there. 
As  we  walked  through  the  snow  to  the  depot 
he  told  us  where  his  shop  stood.  He  said 
there  was  a  great  oil  refinery  next  to  his  shop 
with  plenty  of  machinery,  and  there  was  a 
great  wheel  in  it.  His  shop  was  a  carpenter 
shop  in  which  he  did  very  small  work.  One 
day  the  owner  of  the  oil  refinery  came  by 
when  he  was  hard  at  work  on  a  piece  of  tim- 
ber, and  said  to  him,  "We  have  much  more 
power  on  the  other  side  of  this  wall  in  our 
building  than  we  use.  Why  don't  you  run  a 
shaft  in  and  put  a  wheel  in  your  shop.  Just 
run  it  right  through  the  partition."  He  said 
he  was  permitted  to  belt  on,  in  a  sense,  to  that 
wheel  through  the  partition,  and  he  began  in 
that  humble  way  with  the  help  of  that  power 
to  manufacture,  until  now  his  manufactory 
stretches  up  the  valley  in  five  buildings,  and 
is  a  far  larger  plant  than  the  refinery.  He 
was  lifted  by  that  additional  power  into  that 

18 


place  where  he  could  make  those  things  that 
are  demanded  over  the  world.  He  could  do 
so  much  more  than  he  thought  he  could  be- 
cause there  was  a  larger  power  on  the  other 
side  of  the  partition.  So  with  every  young 
man  or  old  man,  young  woman  or  old  woman, 
who  says,  "I  cannot  do  this.  I  cannot  accom- 
plish that."  There  is  not  only  your  power 
not  yet  used,  but  there  is  a  power  right 
through  the  partition  on  which  you  can  belt, 
and  which  shall  help  you  beyond  all  measure. 
There  is  a  God  that  answers  prayer  now  just 
as  He  answered  it  in  days  past. 

In  Washington,  at  a  Bible  Conference,  I 
heard  a  man  from  the  West  tell  a  story  of 
how  he  had  signed  the  pledge,  broken  off 
drink,  and  that  for  a  year  he  had  kept  the 
pledge,  and  had  joined  the  church.  Then  he 
became  so  intoxicated  by  some  sudden  sweep- 
ing in  of  temptation  that  he  was  dragged  into 
the  station  house  by  the  police.  He  told  us 
how,  when  word  was  sent  to  his  wife  that  he 
was  drunk  again,  she  said,  "It  is  the  last 
time.  I  cannot  do  anything  with  him.  I  will 
see  him  no  more."  She  had  tried  him  again 
and  again,  and  you  could  not  blame  her  for 
it.  But  as  has  been  so  often  the  case  in  such 
incidents  this  man  told  us  how  his  little  girl 

19 


UNUSED  POWERS 


was  sent  around  by  his  brother  to  bring  him 
something  to  eat,  and  he  was  wretched  and 
could  not  eat.  They  allowed  the  little  girl  to 
come  in  the  cell  where  he  was,  and  his  little 
girl,  pale,  thin,  and  sickly  for  years,  sat  down 
beside  her  father  and  ran  her  little  hand 
through  his  hair,  and  said,  "Father,  I  love 
you.  I  trust  you.  Let  me  go  with  you." 
"Why,"  he  said,  "mamma  would  not  let  you 
go."  "Mamma  would  not  say  no,"  said  the 
little  girl.  "I  want  to  go  with  you."  "Why 
do  you  want  to  go?"  "I  want  to  help  you." 
Said  her  father,  "Your  hands,  so  little  and 
thin,  and  you  so  pale  and  weak,  could  not 
earn  a  living  for  your  old  father."  She  said, 
"I  don't  know  what  I  could  do  if  I  tried,  but 
I  could  help."  The  man  told  us  in  his  simple, 
plain,  straightforward  manner  how  he  inter- 
ceded to  have  his  wife  try  him  once  more,  and 
declared  to  himself,  "I  will  destroy  my  life  if 
ever  again  I  fall";  and  how,  when  that  little 
hand  was  taken  to  the  grave  he  and  his  wife 
stood  beside  it,  and  he  said,  "Wife,  I  have 
been  a  very  wicked  man,  but  that  little  hand 
has  helped  me  beyond  any  hand."  Now  he 
gives  his  entire  time  to  train  men  away  from 
evil  into  righteousness  and  truth  because  of 
that  little  hand.  She  didn't  know  whether 

20 


UNUSED  POWERS 


she  could  do  much  or  not,  but  what  she  could 
do  she  would  do.  It  is  ever  the  record  of 
Christian  experience  everywhere  in  life.  We 
get  help  from  hands  that  are  unexpected, 
and  the  little  child's  hands  that  we  did  not 
dream  had  strength  may  turn  us  from  evil 
unto  God. 

I  went  to  a  Baltimore  church  some  years 
ago.  I  went  there  to  lecture,  and  discouraged 
indeed  they  were.  They  had  built  a  great 
church  with  random  recklessness,  without 
care,  with  an  extravagant  faith,  an  ouerfaith 
that  was  only  recklessness,  and  a  great  debt 
upon  them  covered  more  than  the  whole  thing 
was  worth  by  a  great  deal.  When  I  lectured 
I  tried  to  encourage  them,  but  I  myself  did 
not  feel  the  confidence  that  I  tried  to  impart 
to  them. 

The  next  week  two  of  the  ladies  of  the 
church  came  together,  and  they  said  to  each 
other,  "Isn't  there  something  we  can  possibly 
do?  Must  we  let  it  go?  Why  not  hold  a 
prayer  meeting?"  They  called  three  or  four 
of  the  ladies  of  the  church  together,  and  they 
held  a  prayer  meeting,  and  that  church  be- 
came the  most  prosperous  in  the  city  of 
Baltimore.  They  met  together  and  prayed 
the  Lord  that  they  might  belt  on  to  His 

21 


UNUSED  POWERS 


wheel,  and  belting  on  to  Him  they  could 
carry  on  their  great  work. 

There  are  many  churches  that  can  do  great 
things,  but  they  do  not  think  they  can.  They 
can  go  forty  days  and  forty  nights  in  the 
strength  they  now  have,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
journey  God  will  come  with  His  still  small 
voice  and  tell  them  what  to  do  next.  There 
are  many  young  men  discouraged  about  their 
education,  young  women  discouraged  about 
their  work,  or  men  discouraged  who  are  walk- 
ing the  streets  with  no  employment,  and  to 
them  the  voice  of  God  comes  to-day  in  the 
distinct  terms  with  which  it  came  to  Elijah, 
"You  can  go  forty  days  and  nights  yet.  Rise 
up,  look  men  in  the  eye,  look  up  unto  God, 
have  faith  in  God,  and  go  on  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  that  which  you  desire." 

And  so  the  lesson  of  my  thought  is  that 
every  one  of  us  can  do  more  for  God,  more 
for  ourselves,  more  for  our  family,  more  for 
our  city  or  country  than  we  have  ever  yet 
dreamed  of.  The  possibilities  of  what  we  may 
do  when  we  reach  the  limit  of  our  strength, 
we  have  not  seen. 


22 


II 

MAN  AND  HIS  BURNING  BUSH 

IN  the  third  chapter  of  Exodus  we  have 
the  account  of  Moses'  stay  in  the  wilder- 
ness.   In  the  third  verse,  we  read:  "I  will 
now  turn  aside,  and  see  this  great  sight,  why 
the  bush  is  not  burnt.    And  when  the  Lord 
saw  that  he  turned  aside  to  see,  God  called 
unto  him  out  of  the  midst  of  the  bush." 

In  the  city  of  Kirksville,  Missouri,  there 
are  two  brothers  who  inherited  a  large  estate. 
One  of  the  brothers  was  a  very  temperate,  up- 
right, Christian  churchman,  and  the  other 
was  a  wild,  racing,  wicked  man,  wasting  his 
money.  The  temperate  brother  had  taken  his 
part  of  the  estate,  and  had  added  to  it.  He 
built  for  himself  a  beautiful  residence  on  the 
hillside,  which  looked  down  upon  the  lovely 
valley  from  one  side  of  the  highway,  near  to 
their  old  homestead. 

The  young  man  who  had  been  dissipating, 
and  who  had  wasted  his  money,  had  become 
exceedingly  poor,  lived  with  his  family  in  an 

23 


humble  place  some  distance  in  the  country. 
One  night  he  walked  to  Kirksville,  deter- 
mined to  go  to  a  saloon  and  secure  a  drink  of 
whiskey.  There  had  never  occurred  to  him 
in  any  way  that  there  was  anything  about 
drinking  that  was  really  wrong,  although  he 
was  often  sorry  that  he  wasted  his  money  on 
it.  Before  he  came  to  the  saloon,  he  saw  a 
red  lantern  in  the  road,  close  to  the  saloon, 
and  as  he  approached  it,  he  found  that  there 
was  a  ditch  dug  across  the  highway.  He 
stopped  to  think  why  the  lantern  was  thus 
placed  in  the  road,  and  as  he  was  thus  medi- 
tating he  asked  a  passing  man  what  that  red 
lantern  was  for.  The  stranger  said  he  did 
not  know,  but  he  thought  it  would  be  better 
not  to  attempt  to  get  into  that  saloon.  This 
man,  whose  appetite  was  very  strong,  whose 
desire  for  that  drink  was  fearful  at  that  time, 
stood  there  meditating,  looking  at  the  red 
lantern — the  signal  of  danger.  As  he  medi- 
tated, his  conscience  began  to  work,  and  im- 
mediately he  began  to  accuse  himself  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life.  He  began  to  realize 
what  sin  he  had  committed  in  wasting  his 
father's  money  and  leaving  his  family  in  such 
dire  distress,  while  his  brother  had  built  a 
beautiful  residence  from  what  he  had  saved 

24 


and  added  to  the  estate.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, the  man  was  very  full  of  remorse, 
and  he  began  to  accuse  himself  of  being  the 
worst  sinner  that  ever  came  down  the  street, 
and  as  he  looked  at  that  lantern,  the  signal  of 
danger,  it  was  his  "burning  bush,"  and  it  was 
talking  to  him  through  his  conscience  and 
through  his  memory. 

As  in  memory  he  went  back  to  the  time  he 
lived  with  his  father  and  mother  and  recalled 
how  he  was  brought  up  to  reverence  the  good 
and  the  true,  and  he  thought  of  the  family, 
how  they  knelt  at  morning  prayers,  and  how, 
since  his  father's  death,  he  had  gone  steadily 
down  and  down,  and  down.  Standing  there 
by  that  "bush"  and  hearing  God  in  his  own 
conscience  awakened  all  those  memories  that 
accused  him  of  sin.  He  turned  squarely 
around  at  once,  retraced  his  steps  to  his  house, 
called  his  wife  and  said  to  her:  "I  have  seen  a 
signal  of  danger,  and  I  realize  now  what  I 
have  never  realized  before,  notwithstanding 
all  that  you  have  said  about  it;  that  I  am  a 
dreadful  sinner.  I  have  come  back  here  de- 
termined that  I  will  never  taste  that  awful 
stuff  again."  So  clear  was  his  conviction  and 
so  strong  his  will  that  he  was  able  to  conquer 
his  appetite,  and  when  I  was  recently  visiting 

25 


in  Kirksville,  the  other  brother  took  me  up 
the  street  and  showed  me  another  house  like 
his  own,  just  across  the  highway,  so  nearly 
alike  that  you  could  hardly  tell  them  apart. 
The  man  who  had  turned  away  from  drink 
became  an  excellent  business  man. 

Another  illustration  similar  to  it  was  when, 
in  this  house  of  God,  we  offered  prayers  as  a 
church  for  the  return  of  a  young  man  who 
had  left  home,  and  his  widowed  mother  did 
not  know  where  he  was.  He  had  been  very 
wild,  he  had  refused  to  work,  or  he  stayed  but 
a  short  time  at  one  place;  he  wandered  over 
the  country,  drank  to  some  extent,  and  he  was 
in  Chicago  the  night  we  were  praying  for  him 
here.  He  went  up  to  his  room  in  the  hotel, 
and  as  the  porter  lit  the  gas  he  noticed  a 
Bible,  such  as  societies  supply  to  some  hotels. 
When  the  porter  had  gone  out  of  the  room  he 
took  up  that  Bible.  It  was  his  "burning 
bush."  And  when  he  saw  that  Bible  his 
thoughts  returned  to  his  home,  and  his  pray- 
ing mother.  God  spoke  to  him  through  his 
conscience  and  through  his  memory.  He  took 
up  that  Bible,  opened  it,  and  read  this  verse : 
"He  which  converteth  the  sinner  from  the 
error  of  his  way  shall  save  a  soul  from  death, 
and  shall  hide  a  multitude  of  sins." 

26 


UNUSED  POWERS 


God  spoke  to  him.  It  was  his  "burning 
bush."  He  came  home  and  told  his  mother 
how  God  had  spoken  to  him  through  that 
Bible. 

These  illustrations  show  that  God  appeals 
to  every  age,  and  Moses  is  not  the  only  one 
to  whom  He  spoke.  In  the  days  of  my  youth 
— and  I  have  seen  the  acacia  bush,  which  is 
here  spoken  of — I  have  seen  it  in  the  Desert 
of  Arabia,  where  Moses  fed  his  flocks,  and 
when  that  plum  tree  is  in  bloom  in  the  spring 
it  puts  out  the  most  gorgeous  colours,  and 
flames  out  in  beauty,  and  yet  that  bush  was 
perhaps  no  more  in  flames  then  than  the 
bushes  around  Philadelphia  are  now.  You 
go  where  you  will  in  the  country  now,  at  the 
opening  of  this  Resurrection  season,  and 
every  bush  speaks  of  God.  He  flames  in 
every  flower  that  is  now  coming  forth. 

I  do  not  think  that  Moses  was  the  only  per- 
son who  saw  a  burning  bush,  and  I  do  not 
think  that  that  bush  burned  only  at  that  time. 
It  was  probably  burning  twenty  or  thirty 
years  before,  and  he  might  have  seen  it,  but 
he  did  not. 

Emerson  said  that  the  great  difference  be- 
tween men  is  that  one  is  a  mere  man  and 
another  one  is  "a  man  thinking."  The  great 

27 


UNUSED  POWERS 


difference  is  that  one  sees  something  worth 
while,  and  the  other  does  not.  It  reminds  me 
of  Emerson's  illustration  when  he  said  that 
there  was  a  very  heavy  truck  which  was  at- 
tached to  a  pair  of  mules,  and  they  were 
unable  to  draw  it.  As  they  had  worked  them- 
selves out,  they  unhitched  the  mules,  and 
called  upon  a  large  number  of  men  to  come 
and  draw  the  load.  The  men  drew  that 
truck.  They  were  equal  to  the  mules  in  phys- 
ical strength,  and  yet  what  a  difference  there 
may  have  been  between  the  men  who  drew 
that  truck  and  men  who  think.  A  mule  could 
draw  that  truck,  and  so  could  a  man,  if  there 
were  enough  of  them,  with  their  physical 
strength.  When  Archimedes  discovered  the 
lever  by  which  he  could,  by  placing  a  lever 
underneath  a  weight,  lift  with  one  hand,  what 
a  hundred  men  could  not  lift  without  a  lever, 
he  became  "a  man  thinking." 

A  little  while  ago  a  great  city  thoroughfare 
was  covered  with  teams  drawn  by  horses  and 
mules,  and  if  a  man  sat  behind  one  of  them 
long  enough  he  would  perhaps  finally  get 
home.  Neither  of  them  thought  very  much. 
But  one  man  who  was  thinking  invented  the 
automobile,  and  now  they  come  and  go  by 
hundreds,  and  they  cover  the  streets,  and 

28 


UNUSED  POWERS 


crowd  the  avenues,  and  they  carry  our  com- 
merce over  the  world  with  amazing  rapidity 
because  there  was  found  somewhere  a  man 
thinking,  which  made  all  this  difference  in 
transportation. 

Moses  may  have  seen  that  burning  bush  a 
hundred  times  as  he  took  his  flock  to  feed 
near  it.  But  it  was  only  when  he  began  to 
think  that  he  became  the  great  man,  the  great 
prophet  and  statesman  and  successful  man 
that  he  was.  I  say  again,  I  feel  very  certain 
that  there  was  nothing  unusual  about  that 
bush  at  the  time  he  saw  it,  beside  the  fact 
fact  he  took  notice  of  what  had  been  there 
all  the  time  before.  I  have  been  trying 
long  to  impress  the  great  lesson  on  the 
minds  of  young  men  and  women  that  "  Ob- 
servation is  every  man's  university,"  and  I 
have  been  writing  upon  that  book  all  this 
week.  When  I  think  of  Moses  standing 
before  that  bush,  it  was  only  availing  himself 
of  that  present  opportunity  which  he  had  not 
done  before,  in  noticing  the  fire  in  the  burn- 
ing bush. 

There  once  lived  a  man  in  North  Carolina 
who  was  working  as  a  farmhand,  and  on 
stormy  days,  when  it  was  impossible  to  work 
in  the  fields,  he  was  set  to  work  under  the 

29 


UNUSED  POWERS 


shed,  breaking  stones  for  the  purpose  of 
making  roads.  So  all  those  stormy  days  he 
stood  there  breaking  up  stones  into  small 
pieces.  That  was  a  man,  with  a  man's  phys- 
ical power,  and  it  did  not  require  very  much 
strength  for  a  man  to  do  that,  perhaps.  Even 
a  mule  could  have  done  that.  But  one  day 
there  came  to  him  the  thought,  "This  is  a 
very  weak,  useless  thing  for  a  thinking  man 
to  do."  He  said,  "I  am  going  to  find  some- 
thing else  to  occupy  my  mind  and  my 
thoughts  while  I  am  working."  He  began  to 
be  what  Emerson  called  "a  man  thinking." 
It  was  merely  a  man  crushing  stones  before, 
but  now  the  man  thinking  was  seeing  the 
burning  bush,  was  seeing  the  fire,  was  seeing 
the  lightning,  was  seeing  something  new  and 
fascinating  in  life,  and  from  that  one  man 
thinking  there  came  the  great  work  that  is 
now  being  done  all  over  the  world,  wherever 
bridges  are  built  which  are  made  of  concrete 
in  its  present  patent  process.  That  man 
breaking  stones  under  that  shed  was  only  a 
poor,  miserable  man,  earning  ninety  cents  a 
day.  Now  you  build  your  bridges  over  your 
rivers ;  you  build  your  great  sky  scrapers  out 
of  concrete  which  he  invented  or  used  for  the 
first  time  in  its  present  form,  and  "the  man 

30 


UNUSED  POWERS 


thinking"  was  equal  to  thousands  of  men,  as 
soon  as  he  began  to  think. 

Moses,  looking  upon  that  light  that  day 
was  like  a  man  who  first  looked  upon  the 
electric  light.  You  look  at  the  electric  light 
now  and  you  wonder  where  it  came  from.  It 
came  from  Edison  thinking.  Not  from  Edi- 
son alone,  but  from  "a  man  thinking,"  think- 
ing how  by  putting  a  loop  of  wires  in  an 
airtight  space,  it  would  give  light.  It  came 
from  Edison  thinking,  just  as  the  Moses 
thinking  wrought  out  the  delivery  of  the 
children  of  Israel. 

Mrs.  Howe  was  at  a  quilting  party  in  Cam- 
bridge, and  I  well  remember  how  they  used 
to  place  the  quilt  on  frames  on  which  the  quilt 
was  stretched  from  one  side  to  the  other,  and 
then  rolled  up  as  they  worked  the  squares. 
Mrs.  Howe  was  there  like  every  other  woman, 
perhaps  gossiping  as  the  rest  did.  There 
was  absolutely  no  special  difference  between 
them.  She  was  just  a  woman  sewing,  as 
other  women  did  and  mingling  socially  with 
the  rest.  But  as  she  was  working  upon  that 
quilt  she  remembered  that  her  husband  had 
been  working  for  twelve  years  on  a  sewing 
machine,  trying  to  invent  one  that  would  be 
practicable.  That  veiy  day  they  had  been 


UNUSED  POWERS 


obliged  to  go  without  a  fire  because  they  had 
no  fuel,  having  spent  everything  on  this 
patent  for  the  sewing  machine.  But  this 
woman  was  changed  from  a  woman  only,  to 
"a  woman  thinking."  She  took  the  darning 
needle  and  drove  the  eye  of  the  threaded 
needle  instead  of  the  point  down  through  the 
quilt.  Then  a  little  girl  got  under  the  quilt, 
placed  a  thread  through  the  loop  formed  by 
the  thread  on  the  under  side  of  the  quilt,  thus 
holding  the  little  bunch  of  yarn  in  place.  She 
was  changed  from  a  woman  only  to  a  woman 
thinking,  and  when  that  quilting  party  was 
over,  she  went  home  and  said  to  her  husband, 
"Elias,  I  have  found  the  secret !  I  have  found 
what  you  need  to  make  your  sewing  machine. 
You  need  to  reverse  the  needle;  instead  of 
driving  the  point  down,  you  must  drive  the 
head  of  the  needle  down  through  the  cloth, 
and  a  shuttle  may  run  through  the  loop  as  it 
is  drawn  back."  Only  two  weeks  after  that 
Howe  put  out  the  model  of  the  sewing  ma- 
chine, which  has  changed  the  civilization  of 
woman's  work  all  over  the  earth — just  the 
difference  between  a  woman  thinking  and  a 
woman  gossiping. 

When  Moses  faced  that  burning  bush  that 
day,  he  was  aroused.     The  man  who  thinks 

32 


UNUSED  POWERS 


can  furnish  labour  to  a  hundred  hands,  and 
he  consequently  becomes  so  much  more  of  a 
man  than  he  has  been  before.  It  is  an  in- 
tensely interesting  thing  to  study  the  great 
illustrations  which  refer  to  Moses  and  the 
burning  bush,  but  I  have  time  only  to  con- 
dense into  the  briefest  measure  my  lesson. 

Moses  was  an  Israelite,  by  education  an 
Egyptian ;  was  a  graduate  of  the  great  Uni- 
versity in  Heliopolis — probably  a  teacher 
there — held  high  military  rank;  commanded 
armies;  had  been  victorious  in  battle;  he  was 
one  of  the  scholars,  one  of  the  princes  of  the 
great  Empire  of  Egypt;  and  yet — one  night 
he  made  a  mistake,  and  while  we  may  feel 
that  he  was  justified  in  so  doing  under  the 
circumstances,  he  killed  an  Egyptian — and  he 
felt  he  was  a  murderer;  his  conscience  con- 
demned him:  and  he  ran  away.  He  disap- 
peared from  all  these  scenes  of  glory ;  he  ran 
away  from  all  this  power,  and  all  his  wealth, 
and  disappeared  in  the  wilderness,  hiding 
away.  He  realized  he  was  a  criminal,  and  the 
consciousness  of  his  criminality  hung  upon 
him.  He  hid  far  from  his  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances, not  even  his  own  brother  knew 
where  he  was,  and  there  for  forty  years  he 
secreted  himself — self -condemned,  feeding  his 

33 


flocks  there  in  the  wilderness,  living  on  a  mis- 
erable pittance,  taking  his  flocks  wherever  he 
could  find  grass.  One  day  as  he  was  leading 
them  across  the  fields,  half  exhausted  for 
want  of  food,  he  came  upon  this  tree,  the 
acacia  plum  tree,  and  there  was  something  in 
it  that  attracted  his  attention,  and  he  must 
have  said  to  himself,  "God  is  in  that  tree,  God 
is  in  every  tree."  Anyhow,  He  was  in  that 
tree,  and  Moses  saw  Him,  and  he  became  "a 
man  thinking." 

If  we  will  only  look,  we  can  see  God  on 
many  occasions.  We  may  not  be  able  to  see 
Him  always,  but  we  can  see  Him  on  special 
occasions,  like  the  man  with  the  red  lantern, 
or  the  man  with  the  Bible  in  Chicago,  where 
these  things  hold  a  relationship  to  us. 

How  magnificent  is  that  scenery  that 
Moses  looked  upon  as  he  stood  on  the  moun- 
tainside of  Sinai.  There  was  that  great 
range,  on  which  he  could  stand  and  look  to 
the  Red  Sea;  he  could  look  for  a  hundred 
miles  away  to  the  distant  plains,  and  follow- 
ing the  lines  of  the  river,  he  could  see  far 
away  to  the  cities  of  Edom.  Standing  on  the 
side  of  that  mountain,  he  wrought  himself  up 
to  the  awful  sublimity  of  it  all.  He  sees  God, 
and  he  recognizes  God  in  the  soul,  and  in  the 

34 


UNUSED  POWERS 


music  and  sublimity  of  it  all,  and  he  finds  that 
there  are  times  in  a  man's  life  when  his  soul 
is  wrought  up  to  see  visions.  It  is  only  nat- 
ural that  when  we  look  upon  the  scenes  of 
God,  to  find  God  in  them.  I  have  heard 
many  sermons  on  this  text  where  the  idea 
was  emphasized  that  God  especially  appeared 
miraculously  to  Moses  on  this  occasion,  and 
that  interpretation  may  be  true.  It  has  its 
value  if  it  is  interpreted  in  that  way.  But 
it  may  also  be  true  that  God  is  in  that 
bush  every  day,  as  He  had  been  in  it  all 
during  the  lifetime  of  Moses.  Anyhow,  it 
led  Moses  to  thinking;  it  led  him  to  seek 
forgiveness  of  God  and  man,  and  turn  back 
again.  His  conscience  began  to  assume  an- 
other phase;  it  told  him  to  go  back  home 
to  his  people,  and  to  lead  the  Israelites  out 
of  slavery  into  the  liberty  of  the  promised 
land. 

Young  men  and  women  who  will  read 
these  words:  There  is  some  burning  bush 
right  in  your  path  now,  and  to  every  young 
man  and  woman  that  will  watch  for  that  bush, 
God  will  speak  to  him  or  her,  and  tell  him  of 
the  things  he  ought  to  be  doing,  and  no  longer 
waste  his  time  or  his  life  in  this  foolishness,  or 
that,  but  press  him  to  determine  to  face  the 

35 


UNUSED  POWERS 


future  with  a  stronger  heart,  and  make  some- 
thing of  himself. 

God  said  to  Moses,  "Go  back  and  make 
something  of  yourself;  be  a  leader  of  your 
people ;  take  up  the  cause  of  the  weak  and  of 
the  poor  and  demand  that  they  shall  have 
justice."  And  Moses  went  back  to  Egypt 
and  there  faced  Pharoah,  and  there  led  the 
children  of  Israel  out  through  the  Red  Sea, 
and  it  was  then  that  his  sister  and  brother 
came  to  help  him,  to  help  their  criminal 
brother,  who  had  wasted  his  life;  because  he 
was  brave  enough  to  face  sin  and  confess  it, 
to  go  to  God  for  protection,  to  lead  the  life 
as  he  should  have  done  years  before. 

God  is  in  the  bushes;  God  is  in  the  trees; 
God  is  in  the  events  that  are  now  going  on, 
and  the  bush  that  burns  for  you  may  not  be 
the  acacia  bush.  But  if  we  look  for  it,  as 
Moses  did,  we  shall  see  it,  and  if,  when  we 
see  that  warning  bush,  if  we  listen,  God 
will  speak  to  the  hearts  of  every  one  of  us, 
and  tell  us  to  go  back  again  and  begin  once 
more  that  consecrated  life  which  we  ought 
to  have  lived,  and  that  we  should  no  longer 
pass  a  mere  existence  in  the  deserts  of  the 
world. 


36 


Ill 

NO  OTHER  PLACE  TO  GO 

MY  mind  has  been  turning,  on  the  train 
and  in  my  experiences  of  the  week,  to 
this  expression  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  the 
words  which  I  read  to  you  this  morning: 
"Then  said  Jesus  unto  the  twelve,  Will  ye 
also  go  away?  Then  Simon  Peter  answered 
him,  Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go?  thou  hast 
the  words  of  eternal  life." 

"To  whom  shall  we  go?" 

I  have  found  through  the  country  a  very 
serious  decadence  of  the  Christian  churches, 
in  membership  and  in  spiritual  power.  In 
many  places  the  churches  are  poor  and  dis- 
couraged, and  the  officers  speak  with  gloom, 
that  "the  war  is  taking  the  place  of  the 
church,"  and  that  people  talk  politics  now, 
and  not  religion.  Consequently  they  feel 
that  there  is  a  sad  outlook  for  the  Christian 
churches. 

So  I  have  asked  myself,  "To  whom  can  we 
go?"  If  the  church  does  go  out  of  existence; 

37 


if  it  has  to  disband,  "To  whom  shall  we  go?" 
Where  shall  we  turn?  What  can  take  the 
place  of  the  church?  Who  can  do  the 
church's  work? 

A  year  or  two  ago,  there  was  a  town  in  the 
state  of  Washington  which  has,  I  think,  from 
eleven  hundred  to  fifteen  hundred  inhabit- 
ants, which  used  to  have  so  many  churches 
they  could  not  find  people  to  attend  them. 
So  they  disbanded  them  all  and  now  they 
have  no  church,  and  now  they  are  looking  for 
some  one  to  come  in  and  begin  all  anew.  But 
the  condition  of  that  town  without  a  preacher 
so  strangely  disorganized  is  in  the  neglect  of 
the  Sabbath  Day,  in  its  injury  to  business,  in 
social  life  of  the  town ;  and  its  effect  leads  one 
to  see  what  would  be  the  disaster  to  mankind 
if  the  Christian  church  were  to  be  disbanded. 
Where  can  you  go?  What  can  you  set  up  in 
place  of  the  church?  These  people  put  in  the 
"movies";  they  tried  to  put  in  "moral  in- 
fluences" that  were  uplifting  to  the  commun- 
ity; they  have  put  in  baseball  and  football, 
they  have  put  in  excursions  and  all  sorts  of 
things  on  Sundays,  to  take  the  place  of  the 
church.  But  they  did  not  take  the  place  of 
the  church,  and  every  one  felt  that  they  did 
not.  They  said  they  were  all  disgusted  with 

38 


UNUSED  POWERS 


it,  even  those  who  did  not  go  to  church.  They 
became  anxious  about  it  and  came  to  see  me, 
to  find  out  if  it  were  not  possible  to  send  some 
one  from  Pennsylvania  to  open  one  of  the 
buildings  and  have  a  real  live,  Christian 
church.  To  whom  can  the  people  go,  but  to 
the  Saviour  of  all  mankind? 

Organizations  like  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  are 
doing  a  great  and  efficient  work  in  the  up- 
building of  manly  character,  for  the  winning 
of  victories  and  the  turning  of  many  minds 
toward  eternal  things.  Suppose  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  and  kindred  organizations  were  to  be 
disbanded,  what  would  you  put  in  place  of 
them?  Can  you  think  of  anything?  You 
cannot.  It  would  be  impossible  to  find  any- 
thing that  could  do  their  work  and  accomplish 
what  they  can  accomplish  among  young  men 
as  the  agents  of  the  church.  They  have  no 
place  to  go  but  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  kin- 
dred organizations — only  to  Jesus  after  all. 

To  what  place  shall  we  go  if  we  have  no 
home?  You  have  a  place  somewhere  you  call 
home,  and  to  you  it  is  dearer  than  any  palace 
on  earth.  What  can  you  put  up  in  place  of  a 
Christian  home  ?  What  would  become  of  our 
schools  and  our  colleges  if  we  were  to  take 
Christ  out  of  them  and  out  of  the  teachers  and 

39 


UNUSED  POWERS 


of  those  who  have  charge  of  those  institutions  ? 
Think  what  it  would  mean  if  in  the  United 
States  Christ  were  taken  out  of  all  these  in- 
stitutions ;  if  we  did  not  have  Him  in  the  char- 
acter of  our  great  educational  work!  Think 
of  the  almshouses,  of  the  work  for  the  poor 
and  needy,  of  the  money  given  in  the  name  of 
Christ  and  in  the  spirit  of  Christ!  Think 
what  would  become  of  the  work  for  the  poor, 
the  teaching  of  the  ignorant  if  Christ  were 
taken  out.  Think  of  what  the  nation  would 
be  now  if,  in  the  midst  of  this  war,  it  had 
nothing  beyond,  nothing  religious  to  look  for- 
ward to!  If  the  President  sets  forth  to  the 
world  high  ideals,  as  he  does,  it  is  only  because 
he  has  been  taught  the  truth  as  it  is  set  forth 
in  Christ's  great  teachings  with  reference  to 
the  whole  world,  that  the  world  should  be  one 
great  family.  The  Christian  is  always  a  law- 
abiding  socialist.  Socialism  is  taught  in 
various  forms,  and  consequently  the  name 
may  be  misleading.  But  Socialism,  the 
theory  of  the  equality  of  all  men,  the  right  of 
every  child  that  comes  into  the  earth  to  have 
his  share  of  the  world's  garden,  is  the  Social- 
ism of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  his  religion  that 
leads  the  President  of  the  United  States  to 
say  that  all  the  world  shall  be  more  equal; 

40 


that  the  smaller  nations  shall  have  the  same 
rights  as  the  larger  ones.  Where  could  we 
go  if  we  did  not  have  Christ?  To  whom  could 
we  appeal? 

During  the  World  War  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  and  the  Cabinet  officers 
and  others  connected  with  the  Government 
said  wre  must  not  talk  peace,  and  yet  peace  is 
the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  were  in  the 
war  for  peace,  or  we  would  have  had  no  right 
in  it  at  all.  And  today  we  do  talk  peace,  and 
we  will  talk  peace,  and  American  citizens  do 
still  reign  as  kings  on  the  earth,  and  let  them 
hold  that  in  mind.  When  we  voluntarily  sur- 
render our  food,  our  rights,  our  liberty  and 
our  comforts  for  the  purpose  of  winning  the 
war  which  we  believe  in,  no  nation  on  earth 
has  a  right  to  say  to  us  we  shall  not  rule  the 
country  still.  We  are  a  nation  of  American 
free  citizens,  and  so  long  as  this  arm  can 
swing,  and  so  long  as  this  heart  reveres  the 
old  flag,  just  so  long  will  I  be  an  American 
citizen  and  speak  the  truth  as  I  see  it  before 
God.  No  man  shall  dictate  to  me  what  I 
shall  say,  whether  I  shall  pray  for  peace,  or 
pray  for  war.  It  is  the  right  and  duty  of 
every  American  citizen  to  think  and  pray  for 
the  best  things. 

41 


We  must  learn  that  the  American  people 
have  religious  ideals  that  they  believe  in,  and 
that  the  officials  of  the  Government  are  still 
simply  our  servants,  to  do  what  we  tell  them 
to  do,  and  they  cannot  tell  us  what  we  must 
do.  Jesus  taught  that,  "Every  man  is  the 
equal  of  every  other  man  before  God!" 
Every  heart  can  go  to  Him;  every  man  is 
responsible  to  Him  for  himself,  and  Jesus 
said  that  all  mankind  will  some  time  come  and 
acknowledge  Him ;  that  every  knee  must  bow 
and  every  tongue  confess  that  Christ  is  the 
Lord  of  all.  We  cannot  have  peace  until 
all  nations — German,  Russian,  American — 
recognize  this  one  great,  central  ideal:  Jesus 
Christ  and  His  principles,  and  His  truth. 
And  we  will  not  have  permanent  peace  by 
treaties  that  are  not  founded  in  Christian  con- 
science; or  until  the  people  have  determined 
to  obey  their  agreements.  We  cannot  trust 
diplomacy ;  we  cannot  trust  anything  but  the 
consciences  of  men  made  clear  by  the  presence 
of  Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  Let  all  nations 
recognize  Him!  To  whom  can  we  go  but  to 
Him?  There  is  no  other  Name;  there  is  no 
other  Spirit;  there  is  no  other  ideal  but 
Christ.  We  must  call  upon  Him  to  maintain 
Lour  integrity  in  His  sight,  in  order  that  all 

42 


UNUSED  POWERS 


nations  may  agree  to  accept  one  common 
standard. 

Which  way  shall  we  go  if  we  forsake 
Christ?  Peter  and  the  disciples — eleven  of 
them — were  there,  and  they  did  not  turn 
away  from  Christ ;  only  temporarily  if  at  all. 
But  Judas  turned  away  from  Him.  Where 
could  he  go  when  he  had  no  Christ,  no  Sav- 
iour? He  went  out  into  the  darkness,  blam- 
ing himself,  cursing  himself  and  hanged 
himself.  Where  shall  we  go  but  to  Christ? 
Peter  was  very  wise  about  it.  In  grief,  in 
sorrow,  in  trouble,  in  disaster,  we  have  no 
place  to  go  but  to  Christ.  There  was  only 
one  place  that  Peter  desired  to  go,  and  that 
was  to  his  Master. 

I  saw  a  home-sick  boy  in  a  station  travel- 
ing alone  last  week,  and  I  tried  my  best  to 
comfort  him,  and  I  tried  to  get  him  to  go 
up  town  with  me,  or  to  look  around  in  the 
stores;  but  that  poor  boy  was  so  broken- 
hearted, he  was  so  home-sick,  that  for  a  long 
time  I  could  not  get  anything  from  him. 
Finally  he  told  me  he  wanted  "to  go  home." 
He  did  not  want  anything  else  but  to  go 
home.  That  was  the  only  place  that  would 
satisfy  him. 

I  saw  during  the  war  the  great  factories  in 

43 


UNUSED  POWERS 


the  West  let  out  their  men,  and  what  a  sub- 
lime thing  it  was  to  stand  on  the  street  corner 
and  see  the  thousands  flock  from  the  munition 
plants  on  the  Pacific  coast  and  see  them  scat- 
ter in  all  the  various  directions  through  the 
city.  One  takes  this  street  and  the  other  that, 
and  the  other  that  alley ;  some  homes  may  be 
poor  and  some  very  humble  and  small,  but 
each  went  his  own  direction  to  his  own  home. 
I  have  seen  The  Temple  University  dismiss 
its  classes  and  thousands  of  students  come 
out  of  its  doors,  and  each  goes  in  his  given 
direction  toward  one  home.  One  place  above 
all  other  places!  Where  could  they  go  but 
home?  And  so  it  is  with  the  Christian.  He 
can  go  in  no  other  direction  but  toward  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

They  tell  us  that  the  Bible  is  getting  old 
and  that  people  are  losing  their  faith  in  it  and 
their  love  for  it,  and  yet  it  is  the  only  train 
there  is ;  it  is  the  only  boat  there  is.  When  a 
U-boat  sunk  a  ship  there  was  sometimes  only 
one  boat  for  the  survivors  to  get  into;  but 
suppose  those  men  had  said,  "There  is  surely 
only  one  boat,  but  we  will  not  get  into  that; 
it  might  be  a  leaky  boat;  we  will  strike  out 
for  ourselves  and  tiy  to  swim  to  the  distant 
shore" — it  would  have  been  just  as  foolish  as 

44 


turning  away  from  this  Bible,  the  only  boat 
we  have. 

They  once  told  me  in  Spokane,  Washing- 
ton, that  there  was  only  one  train  to  Butte, 
Mont.  There  was  only  one  train,  and  so  the 
agents  urged  the  people,  "You  must  be  sure 
to  take  that  one  train."  The  Government 
had  taken  the  railroads  in  hand  and  ran  the 
trains  as  it  pleased,  and  often  nobody  could 
tell  at  what  time  the  trains  would  go.  But 
"that  one  train  is  all  you  shall  have;  take  that 
train  or  you  will  be  left  behind."  He  cannot 
reach  his  home  by  any  other  route. 

The  faith  of  our  fathers  is  the  true  faith! 
Grant  us  the  faith  of  our  fathers.  Grant 
unto  us  that  spiritual,  wonderful  pathway 
that  leadeth  unto  eternal  life.  I  will  walk  in 
that  path,  for  my  father  believed  in  it.  The 
centuries  have  taught  that  it  is  the  only  way. 
If  I  be  turned  off  that  path,  then  shall  I 
wander  in  darkness,  and  then  shall  there  be 
annihilation!  To  whom  can  we  go  but  to 
Christ,  the  only  One?  There  is  no  need  of  a 
new  anchor!  Men  may  say,  "Here  is  Christ, 
and  there  is  Christ,  and  in  the  other  place  is 
Christ,"  that  there  may  be  a  new  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Scriptures.  But  the  world  goes 
ahead  and  the  Church  must  keep  up  to  it. 

45 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Yet  there  is  only  one  Christ,  and  there  is  only 
one  Gospel  which  we  must  follow.  The  grand 
old  faith  of  a  hundred  years  ago  believed  in 
the  individual  rights  of  every  single  person, 
consistent  with  the  rights  of  his  fellowmen. 

If  we  desire  to  live  the  highest  life  and  in 
the  holiest  relationship  we  need  to  have  a 
model.  A  painter  goes  across  the  ocean  to 
see  Raphael's  wonderful  painting  in  the 
Vatican,  in  order  that  he  may  get  his  eyes  on 
the  highest  ideal  there  is  in  painting.  And 
there  is  only  one  painting  in  all  the  world  that 
may  be  called  the  highest ;  only  one  that  is  the 
greatest.  If  we  would  be  Christians,  we  must 
keep  our  minds  on  the  highest  ideal.  If  we 
would  have  the  very  best  character;  if  we 
would  enjoy  the  most  that  life  could  bring; 
if  we  would  live  the  most  holy  and  perfect 
life,  and  if  we  would  be  most  sure  of  eternity 
at  the  end  of  this  life,  we  must  hold  those 
ideals  before  us  which  are  centered  in  Christ 
Himself. 

I  asked  a  girl  not  long  since  how  she  got 
along  with  her  father.  He  was  cross ;  he  was 
jealous;  he  was  lazy;  he  seemed  to  have  about 
every  bad  trait  but  drunkenness;  and  I  said 
to  her,  "How  is  it  that  you  get  along  with 
your  father  when  nobody  else  can?"  and  she 

46 


said,  "Because  he  is  the  only  father  I  have, 
and  so  I  make  the  best  of  him."  And  when 
Peter  asked  of  Jesus,  "To  whom  shall  we 
go?"  he  said  in  effect,  "I  don't  understand 
Thee;  I  don't  understand  all  Thy  teachings 
fully;  I  believe  we  ought  to  use  the  sword 
when  Thou  teachest  peace;  I  don't  believe  in 
many  things  Thou  hast  advanced  concerning 
our  religion.  Yet  Thou  only  hast  the  words 
of  eternal  life." 

Only  one  train!  Only  one  home!  Only 
one  father ;  better  make  the  best  of  him.  But 
the  thought,  really,  that  was  in  my  mind  has 
been  this,  that  I  want  you  to  make  up  your 
minds  that  Christ  is  really  the  only  One  to 
whom  you  can  go. 

I  heard  in  Oregon  a  pathetic  incident  con- 
cerning a  family  of  whom  I  had  known  some- 
thing. A  brother  and  younger  sister  went 
out  to  take  charge  of  a  ranch,  and  there  lived 
together,  she  keeping  house  for  him.  He  was 
a  strong,  vigorous,  determined  man,  very  set 
in  his  ways,  and  she  had  something  of  his 
characteristics,  consequently  they  did  not 
always  get  along  well  together.  When  the 
brother  married  and  the  wife  came  in  to  take 
the  work  of  the  sister,  it  made  her  very  un- 
happy, and  she  soon  became  engaged  to  a 

47 


UNUSED  POWERS 


worthless  man,  a  man  whom  her  brother 
thought  was  altogether  beneath  his  sister's 
station.  So  he  turned  his  sister  out-of-doors 
and  told  her  never  "to  darker  his  door  again," 
and  she  said  she  hoped  she  would  never  see 
him  again. 

They  separated.  The  man  she  married 
was  a  useless,  good-for-nothing  man,  who 
would  not  take  care  of  himself  and  certainly 
not  of  her,  and  into  the  home  they  set  up 
there  came  nothing  but  quarrels,  and  finally, 
one  night  her  husband  turned  her  and  her 
little  baby  out  into  the  snow  and  cold.  She 
was  four  or  five  miles  from  her  brother's 
house.  But  when  she  was  turned  out  that 
night  into  the  snow,  and  the  cold  north  winds 
swept  across  those  prairies,  and  she  held  her 
little  baby  close  to  her  breast,  she  said,  "I 
don't  know  where  to  go!"  "I  don't  know 
where  to  go!"  Where  could  she  go?  No 
house  within  two  or  three  miles,  and  her 
brother's  house  four  miles  away!  Where 
could  she  go?  As  her  brother  was  sitting  by 
the  fireside,  he  heard  a  rapping  at  the  door; 
then  there  came  a  scream  from  the  outside, 
and  he  arose  hastily  from  the  table  and  rushed 
to  the  door,  and  when  he  opened  it  his  sister 
fell  in,  fainting  to  the  floor,  with  her  little 

48 


UNUSED  POWERS 


baby  in  her  arms,  with  her  hands  so  frozen 
that  her  fingers  had  to  be  afterward  ampu- 
tated, and  as  she  regained  consciousness,  she 
looked  at  her  brother,  and  said  to  him,  "O, 
brother  Jim!  I  have  come  to  you  because  I 
have  nowhere  else  to  go !  Nowhere  else  to  go, 
brother  Jim!" 

The  lesson  taught  in  this  is  that  the  man, 
with  such  a  great  heart,  was  so  broken  and 
touched  by  his  sister's  appeal  that  his  wife 
took  her  in  and  made  her  one  of  the  family, 
to  be  comforted  and  cared  for  by  her  brother. 
The  brother  thanked  the  Lord  and  thanked 
her  for  having  come  to  him  when  she  had  no 
other  place  to  go. 

I  heard  a  pathetic  and  sweet  little  incident 
the  other  day  doubly  interesting  to  me,  be- 
cause I  had  just  been  reading  a  dog  story  in 
a  recently  published  magazine.  They  told 
me  out  in  Bellingham,  Washington,  that  a 
young  woman  was  studying  to  be  a  nurse. 
When  the  War  came  on  she  was  in  the  hos- 
pital, when  a  boy  was  brought  in  with  a 
broken  hand.  With  the  boy  came  a  little 
spaniel  dog.  They  tried  to  keep  the  dog  out 
of  the  hospital  and  did  send  him  away  several 
times,  but  he  still  hung  around,  waiting  for 
his  little  master.  Gangrene  had  set  in,  and 

49 


UNUSED  POWERS 


the  little  boy  soon  died,  but  the  dog  would 
still  wait  around  the  hospital  for  his  little 
master.  Often  the  nurse  would  take  pity  on 
him  and  give  him  something  to  eat.  But  the 
interesting  thing  about  the  story  is  that  one 
day  as  the  dog  was  going  out  of  the  hospital 
he  caught  his  paw  in  the  crack  of  the  closing 
door,  as  the  door  shut  quickly  and  crushed  his 
paw.  It  seems  he  remembered  how  the  nurse 
had  taken  care  of  his  master's  hand,  and  the 
dog  went  limping  in  and  whining  at  her.  He 
went  up  to  the  nurse,  sat  by  the  bedside  and 
put  his  paw  upon  her  lap  and  held  it  there  for 
her  to  wrap  it  up  as  she  had  done  with  his 
little  master.  From  that  time  on  that  nurse 
and  that  dog  were  intimate  friends.  The  dog 
did  not  wish  to  see  any  one  else  but  the  nurse. 

Then  came  the  call  to  arms,  and  the  nurse's 
great  difficulty  was  to  part  with  her  dog,  and 
when  her  mother  protested  that  she  should  not 
let  her  affection  go  out  like  that  to  a  dog,  the 
nurse  turned  to  her  mother,  and  said,  "To 
whom  could  the  dog  go  but  to  me;  no  one 
would  take  the  boy's  place ;  there  is  no  one  to 
care  for  him  but  me!" 

When  she  took  the  steamer  as  a  war  nurse, 
she  entreated  the  officers  to  allow  her  to  take 
the  dog  with  her,  and  finally  she  was  per- 

50 


UNUSED  POWERS 


mitted  tc  take  him  as  a  "mascot,"  and  the 
little  dog  was  with  his  mistress  whenever  pos- 
sible and  was  always  fed  by  her.  On  the 
steamer  the  nurse  was  taken  sick  with  a  con- 
tagious disease.  She  died,  and  as  is  the  case 
on  steamers  when  a  person  dies  with  a  con- 
tagious disease,  they  wrapped  the  body  up  in 
a  winding  sheet,  weighted  it  and  let  it  down 
over  the  side  of  the  steamer  into  the  ocean. 
The  dog  saw  it  all,  and  he  sat  there  whining, 
filled  with  sorrow.  The  next  morning  early 
a  sailor  going  around  by  the  taffrail  saw  the 
dog  come  out  of  the  cook's  cabin  and  go  up  to 
the  railing.  As  he  looked  out  on  the  sea,  he 
began  to  wag  his  tail,  as  though  he  saw  some- 
thing, and  then  leaped  into  the  sea,  and  went 
down,  following  his  mistress'  body  to  the 
depth  of  the  sea. 

To  whom  could  that  dog  go?  When  that 
old  mother  heard  that  her  daughter  was  dead, 
and  heard  of  the  story  of  the  dog,  she  felt 
comforted.  She  somehow  could  not  feel  so 
sad.  When  that  mother,  in  the  sorrow  of  her 
daughter's  death  and  of  the  burial  in  the 
awful  sea,  her  heart  full  of  tenderness,  turned 
toward  Jesus,  she  held  up  her  hands  in 
prayer,  and  she  said,  "Lord  Jesus!  to  whom 
can  I  go?  As  that  dog  went  to  my  daughter, 

51 


UNUSED  POWERS 


'having  no  other  place  to  go,'  so  I  come  to 
Thee  for  comfort!"  And  in  times  of  sorrow 
and  of  great  distress  there  is  only  one  place 
you  can  go,  and  that  is  to  Christ  the  Lord. 
All  things  else  may  fail,  and  yet  it  is  possible, 
even  in  the  extremes  of  sorrow,  and  disap- 
pointment, and  poverty,  and  pain  to  go  to 
the  one  great  Saviour  and  find  that  He  is  all 
and  in  all. 

To  whom  can  we  go  but  to  Jesus  Christ? 


IV 
DISGUISED  VICTORIES 

I  WANT  to  say  something  with  reference 
to  what  Jesus   said  in  the   twenty-first 
chapter  of  Matthew,  forty-second  verse, 
where  He  referred  to  his  own  position  in  the 
world.    Referring  to  Himself  with  a  sublime 
view  of  future  history  Jesus  said:  "The  stone 
which  the  builders  rejected  has  become  the 
head  of  the  corner.    This  is  the  Lord's  doing 
and  it  is  marvelous  in  our  eyes." 

I  was  once  sitting  in  the  home  of  John  S. 
C.  Abbott,  the  great  biographer,  writing  the 
"Lives  of  the  Presidents  of  the  United 
States."  He  had  written  a  large  book  upon 
it.  I  had  looked  up  and  written  minor  por- 
tions of  the  history,  and  after  Dr.  Abbott  died 
I  continued  the  work,  and  carried  the  volume 
on  until  I  came  to  Philadelphia.  Each  Presi- 
dent's life  was  added  to  to  make  a  larger  vol- 
ume. But  that  evening, — next  to  the  last 
evening  I  ever  saw  the  great  scholar,  we  were 
talking  with  reference  to  the  lives  of  the 

53 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Presidents  in  general,  and  one  lesson  which 
he  drew  from  their  lives,  we  did  not  write  out, 
because  it  seemed  to  be  too  piously  religious. 
Nevertheless,  the  quotation  came  to  our  lips 
together.  "The  stone  which  the  builders  re- 
jected has  become  the  head  of  the  corner." 
That  night,  as  I  thought  it  over,  I  thought  I 
could  recognize  the  hand  of  Almighty  God 
going  through  history  and  working  out  con- 
tinually in  the  lives  of  the  Presidents. 

The  illustration  of  this  fact  in  the  life  of 
George  Washington  does  not  come  to  my 
mind,  but  beginning  with  John  Adams,  I  can 
follow  the  line  all  the  way  down.  In  the  life 
of  John  Adams  we  found  that  at  twenty 
years  of  age  he  graduated  from  Harvard 
University  and  went  out  with  all  the  ambi- 
tions of  a  young  graduate  from  college,  think- 
ing that  he  knew  more  of  history,  more  of  the 
sciences,  more  of  the  philosophies  and  more  of 
literature  than  any  one  else  could  possibly 
know.  It  is  a  very  usual  thing  for  a  young 
man  who  has  graduated  from  college  to  think 
he  has  obtained  all  the  knowledge  there  is  to 
be  obtained  in  this  world,  whereas  he  really 
has  secured  only  a  very  small  section  of  what 
he  needs  to  know.  But  young  Adams  went 
out  with  very  large  ideas,  and  applied  for  a 

54 


UNUSED  POWERS 


position  as  teacher  in  Worcester,  Mass.  He 
supposed,  of  course,  that  the  school  commit- 
tee would  say,  "Certainly,  come  right  in;  you 
belong  to  the  Adams  family,  having  aristoc- 
racy behind  you  and  you  are  a  graduate  of 
Harvard  College.  There  is  no  need  for  this 
committee  to  look  any  further."  When  they 
summoned  John  Adams  to  appear  before  the 
school  committee  of  Worcester  to  be  ex- 
amined, he  was  indignant,  and  refused  at  first 
to  go.  He  said,  "I  know  so  much!  Those 
men  have  no  right  to  examine  me.  They 
know  far  less  than  I  do."  Yet  his  pride 
began  to  waver  and  his  father  insisted  that  he 
should  go.  Anyhow  he  did  go.  They  ex- 
amined the  young  man  and  he  was  rejected. 
The  committee  decided  he  did  not  know 
enough  to  teach  school  in  Worcester.  Of  all 
the  crushing  blows  that  seemed  to  come  to 
that  young  man,  that  was  the  severest. 
Broken  down  beyond  measure,  he  said,  "With 
all  that  I  know  and  all  that  I  have  inherited, 
I  have  been  rejected."  For  a  time  he  aban- 
doned all  his  hopes  and  all  his  ambitions  in 
life.  But  the  stone  which  the  builders  re- 
jected in  Worcester,  was  afterward  to  be- 
come the  head  of  the  corner,  and  some  years 
afterward  that  same  city  turned  out  to  ac- 

55 


UNUSED  POWERS 


"  claim  him  as  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  The  very  men  who  had  been  on  that 
school  committee  were  now  ashamed  to  see 
him,  even  in  the  distance,  because  of  the  fact 
that  he  had  become  "the  head  of  the  corner." 

Such  was  the  singular  thing  in  the  history 
of  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  was  also  from  a 
fine  family  in  Virginia.  He  got  into  a  con- 
troversy with  Governor  Dunmore  over  the 
Boston  Port  Bill,  passed  by  Great  Britain. 
Young  Jefferson  was  very  open  in  his  decla- 
ration that  Boston  should  be  a  free  port,  and 
Virginia  was  secretly  mustering  its  forces  to 
help  Boston  rebel  against  Great  Britain. 
But  Governor  Dunmore,  with  an  ardent 
friendship  for  England  and  King  George 
III,  looked  down  upon  the  young  man  with 
disdain,  refused  to  speak  to  him,  turned  him 
out  of  his  office  and  forbid  him  ever  to  come 
near  him  again.  The  Governor  of  the  great 
State  refused  to  have  anything  more  to  do 
with  him.  At  that  hour  Jefferson  was  re- 
jected by  the  builders,  and  he  felt  that  life 
was  no  longer  worth  living  under  such  dis- 
grace. Friends  also  refused  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  him.  The  young  women  turned 
away  from  him  and  would  not  be  seen  with 
him.  Friends  rejected  him  when  he  appeared 

56 


UNUSED  POWERS 


at  any  invited  occasion.  Poor,  disgraced  Jef- 
ferson, whom  the  builders  rejected!  But 
there  came  a  day  in  Philadelphia  when  Jeffer- 
son sat  at  a  table  drawing  up  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  for  the  coming  United 
States.  He  had  become  the  head  of  the 
corner.  That  very  time  he  was  drawing  up 
that  Declaration  of  Independence,  one  of  the 
friends  who  refused  to  speak  to  him  when  he 
was  in  disgrace  was  moving  in  the  House  of 
Burgesses  in  Virginia,  a  complimentary  reso- 
lution in  favor  of  the  stand  that  Jefferson  had 
taken.  He  was  the  "head  of  the  corner," 
which  only  so  few  years  before  the  builders 
had  rejected. 

John  Quincy  Adams  for  three  years  tried 
to  get  clients  as  a  lawyer.  People  looked 
upon  him  as  a  peculiar  individual,  not  par- 
ticularly gifted,  and  consequently,  he  could 
get  no  practice,  was  disappointed  again  and 
again  and  was  going  down  into  poverty. 
One  afternoon  the  question  was  before  the 
people  of  Boston,  as  to  whether  they  should 
go  into  alliance  with  France  in  her  war  with 
England,  just  after  the  Revolutionary  War. 
The  American  people  were  so  deeply  in  sym- 
pathy with  France  for  the  help  they  had 
given  us  in  the  Revolution,  that  they  felt  that 

57 


we  ought  to  go  into  immediate  alliance  with 
France  against  England.  The  prejudices  at 
that  time  were  very  strong  against  England. 
But  young  John  Quincy  Adams  took  that 
stand  that  we  ought  not  to  go  into  alliance 
with  France.  He  claimed  that  England  was 
no  more  to  blame  than  France  in  the  contro- 
versy; and  although  we  loved  France  so 
much  and  were  so  greatly  indebted  to  her,  we 
must  not  do  an  inconsistent  or  wicked  thing, 
even  in  the  case  of  such  a  friendship  as  that. 
He  was  out-spoken  about  it.  He  had  opened 
a  little  office  and  started  his  law  practice 
under  Government  support.  Immediately 
his  clients  fell  off  because  of  the  stand  which 
he  took.  But  the  stone  which  the  builders  re- 
jected was  later  to  become  the  head  of  the 
corner.  John  Quincy  Adams  sank  seemingly 
out  of  sight  altogether.  But  George  Wash- 
ington heard  of  him,  and  George  Washing- 
ton felt  that  John  Quincy  Adams  was  right. 
He  felt  that  we  ought  not  to  go  to  war 
with  any  nation  unless  it  was  for  a  just 
cause,  no  matter  what  might  have  been  our 
previous  situation,  and  while  Washington 
sympathized  with  France  and  loved  France 
for  what  she  had  done  for  us,  he  took  the 
stand  of  John  Quincy  Adams;  and  upon 


UNUSED  POWERS 


that  thought  he  was  nominated  and  elected 
President. 

Adams  was  appointed  immediately  as  Min- 
ister  to  the  Netherlands,  which  was  the  foun- 
dation of  all  his  great  subsequent  career. 
The  hand  of  God  seems  to  have  worked  out 
the  same  result. 

Jackson  seemed  to  have  been  disgraced 
when  he  married  a  divorced  woman  about 
whom  many  scandals  had  been  circulated. 
She  had  secured  her  divorce  by  the  acts  of  the 
Legislature  of  Virginia.  It  was  not  lawful. 
He  did  not  know  that  and  she  did  not  know 
it.  Thus  they  were  not  legally  married,  and 
two  years  after  their  first  marriage  they  were 
married  again.  Their  home  life  was  one  of 
the  loveliest  in  history.  She  threw  a  femi- 
nine influence  on  his  life  that  was  most  pow- 
erful for  good.  But  many  people  began  to 
criticise  their  action  in  living  together  for  two 
years  without  being  legally  married.  The 
scandal  circulated  and  the  young  man  was 
not  received  in  society,  was  refused  the  po- 
litical office  which  he  had  expected  ;  disgraced, 
turned  aside,  hated  by  every  one  but  his  wife. 
The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected.  The 
very  leaders  of  that  society  which  refused  him 
admission,  and  which  blamed  him  unjustly,  a 

59 


UNUSED  POWERS 


few  years  later  sought  an  interview  with  Mrs. 
Jackson  to  tell  her  how  much  they  regretted 
that  they  ever  took  any  such  position  as  they 
did,  years  before.  His  wife  very  modestly 
and  quietly  stood  by  him  through  all  the 
years  and  at  last  led  him  to  Christ.  The  most 
profane  man  in  the  United  States  became  the 
man  of  the  cleanest  language,  and  Andrew 
Jackson  served  the  Lord  with  a  devotion  that 
was  one  of  the  marvels  of  our  history.  "The 
stone  which  the  builders  rejected  became  the 
head  of  the  corner." 

But  this  was  especially  the  case  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  when  in  his  early  life  the  people 
rebuked  him.  It  is  a  most  tender  and  touch- 
ing story  that  we  read  of  Lincoln  when  he 
was  defeated  in  his  first  candidacy  for  the 
Legislature  of  Illinois.  He  was  a  young 
man,  unknown,  brought  in  from  the  forest. 
But  he  had  studied,  and  read,  until  he  felt  an 
ambition  to  be  in  the  Legislature.  The  great 
majority  was  against  him,  and  he  was  de- 
feated. Poor  Abraham  Lincoln!  He  said, 
"I  will  go  back  into  the  forest  splitting  rails ; 
I  will  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  politics." 
The  builders  had  rejected  Abraham  Lincoln. 
But  he  became  the  head  of  the  corner. 

I  heard  General  Garfield  relate  that  when 

60 


UNUSED  POWERS 


he  was  teaching  school  he  had  no  further  am- 
bition; all  he  expected  to  do  was  to  make 
enough  to  be  sure  of  his  board  and  clothes. 
He  had  no  appreciation  of  political  promo- 
tion. When  he  was  elected  to  the  Presidency 
of  Hiram  College  in  Ohio  it  was  a  very  close 
vote, — only  one  vote  more  than  necessary  to 
elect  him.  But  afterward,  he  became  the  head 
of  the  corner.  Such  was  the  case  with 
McKinley;  such  was  the  case  with  Harrison. 

The  Presidents  of  the  United  States  in 
their  lives  fully  illustrate  Jesus'  great  saying 
that  "the  stone  which  the  builders  rejected  has 
become  the  head  of  the  corner."  When  we 
stand  as  we  do  at  this  point  in  history,  we  are 
reminded  of  this  saying  by  the  continual  re- 
currence of  victories  after  defeats. 

I  was  consulted  concerning  the  life  of 
Cyrus  H.  K.  Curtis,  of  the  "Ladies'  Home 
Journal,"  as  some  business  men  proposed  to 
make  a  biographical  moving  picture  of  Cur- 
tis, so  that  people  could  look  at  it  from  all  the 
different  standpoints,  and  take  courage.  If 
we  begin  on  the  inside,  or  at  the  beginning,  of 
his  biography  we  will  be  at  a  very  great  dis- 
advantage. We  meet  a  quiet,  modest  man. 
But  if  we  would  get  at  the  real  influence  of 
the  greater  Curtis,  we  must  go  into  the  homes 

61 


UNUSED  POWERS 


where  his  publications  go,  see  the  influence  of 
those  magazines  upon  the  lives  of  those  in 
those  homes, — upon  the  mother,  the  father, 
the  children;  upon  the  associations  around 
that  home;  upon  literature;  upon  science, 
upon  religion.  You  cannot  measure  the  in- 
fluence of  Mr.  Curtis'  life  by  his  early  life 
when  I  used  to  know  him  in  Boston,  away 
back  there  in  the  early  years.  You  must 
travel  slowly  down  the  years  to  see  what  has 
been  wrought  through  his  influence  day  by 
day,  in  England,  India,  Canada  and  other 
places;  see  what  he  has  wrought  out  by  the 
distribution  of  his  literature  through  the 
world,  and  then  turn  around  and  look  back  on 
his  victorious  ascent. 

In  hard  times,  when  "being  rejected  by 
the  builders,"  many  opportunities  appear  in 
which  to  become  wealthy, — opportunities  to 
engage  in  great  enterprises  that  would  not 
otherwise  be  possible.  It  all  points  to  the 
Christ  back  of  history, — that  great  figure  that 
stands  up  there  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee  two 
thousand  years  ago  and  whose  influence  goes 
out  in  ever  widening  circles  as  the  years  roll 
on.  "It  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  marvel- 
ous in  our  eyes."  What  hath  not  God 
wrought  out  of  One  so  humble,  so  obscure, — * 

62 


UNUSED  POWERS 


living  in  lowly  Nazareth,  out  of  which  no 
great  thing  ever  came.  Yet  that  man,  in 
that  place,  rejected  by  the  scholars;  re- 
jected by  His  neighbours;  with  no  aristo- 
cratic family  connections,  becomes  the  great 
Corner  Stone  of  the  Christian  Religion,  which 
has  affected  every  good  thing  that  we  see  in 
our  civilization. 

I  went  to  the  hospital  the  other  day  and 
saw  a  hundred  of  those  ministering  angels— 
the  nurses — caring  for  the  sick.  My  mind 
looked  back  through  2000  years,  along  a 
straight  line,  to  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  I  thought 
how  what  was  being  done  now  was  one  result 
of  the  teaching,  example  and  sacrifice  of 
Christ. 

If  you  go  into  the  great  libraries  of  the 
World  and  select  from  those  shelves  the 
choicest  of  books  from  the  collection,  they  all 
point  back  to  Christ.  He  has  now  become  the 
head  of  the  corner.  Then  he  was  rejected  of 
men.  He  was  cast  aside  by  the  builders. 

We  are  today  living  in  an  age  of  wonders. 
One  of  the  greatest  of  all  wonders  was  the 
Conference  at  Washington.  It  is  a  marvel- 
ous thing  to  see  coming  into  that  Conference 
the  Spirit  of  Christ;  the  Spirit  of  Jesus;  the 
Spirit  of  Equity;  the  Spirit  of  Friendship. 

63 


UNUSED  POWERS 


What  a  great  thing  it  is  to  see  gathered  there 
the  Nations  of  the  Earth, — Japan,  China, 
England,  America  and  the  other  Nations  in 
that  Council, — to  see  this  country  trying  to 
do  "the  fair  thing."  What  a  beautiful  thing 
for  the  Nations  of  the  Earth  to  do, — to  find 
Japan  doing  the  fair  thing  by  China, — in 
mercy;  in  justice,  in  kindness.  As  day  by 
day  that  Conference  goes  on  there  develops 
more  of  that  Christian  Spirit  which  prevails 
strongly  in  this  country  and  which  is  pointing 
more  and  more  surely  to  that  greater  Confer- 
ence that  will  be  a  fraternal  Parliament  for 
all  the  Nations  of  the  Earth.  It  is  to  become 
the  cornerstone,  as  the  once  rejected  Christ  is 
to  become  the  cornerstone  of  this  new  civiliza- 
tion which  is  being  founded  in  the  City  of 
Washington  at  this  hour.  Let  us  pray  for  it ; 
remember  it;  rejoice  over  it,  and  let  us  be 
assured  that  the  stone  which  the  builders  re- 
jected at  Galilee  has  become  now  the  head  of 
the  corner.  Defeats  in  a  righteous  cause  are 
victories  in  disguise. 


V 
POWER  TO  RISE  AGAIN 

IN  the  tenth  chapter  of  John,  we  find  Jesus 
explaining  His  burial  and  resurrection  to 
the  Apostles,  but  they  do  not  understand. 
He  stated:  "I  lay  down  my  life  that  I  may 
take  it  again.     I  have  power  to  lay  it  down 
and  I  have  power  to  take  it  again." 

Every  person  who  visits  a  church  should 
receive  something;  and  many  difficulties  pre- 
sent themselves  to  the  preacher.  It  does  not 
matter  so  much  what  is  said  from  the  pulpit, 
as  people  can  get  direct  communications  from 
God,  get  thoughts  and  hopes  and  inspirations 
that  the  pulpit  could  not  give.  It  is  often 
only  a  veiy  small  part  of  one's  worship  to 
hear  what  the  preacher  has  to  say.  You  could 
go  to  church  with  no  preacher  in  the  pulpit, 
and  there  sing  and  pray  and  receive  spiritual 
messages  that  will  direct  your  steps  or  will 
do  away  with  your  sorrow  and  care.  You  can 
get  to  the  Lord  without  pulpit  ministrations 
at  all;  not  that  the  pulpit  ministrations  are 

65 


UNUSED  POWERS 


helpless;  but  that  the  worship  of  God  does 
not  all  consist  in  listening  to  some  one's  state- 
ment of  some  theory  or  doctrine. 

Jesus  said,  "I  have  power  to  lay  down  my 
life  and  I  have  power  to  take  it  again." 
When  Christ  said  that,  no  one  believed  it. 
Even  the  men  who  had  traveled  with  Him  all 
that  time;  who  had  seen  His  wonderful  mir- 
acles; who  had  never  heard  Him  say  an  un- 
truthful thing,  and  who  had  never  seen  Him 
do  an  act  that  was  not  consistent  with  a 
divine,  upright  life,  did  not  believe  that. 
When  He  said  that  He  had  power  to  lay 
down  His  life,  and  that  He  had  power  to  take 
it  up  again,  no  one  believed  that  He  meant  it 
literally. 

When  He  was  crucified  and  His  body  was 
laying  in  the  tomb,  the  disciples  assembled  in 
that  upper  chamber  in  sorrow  and  with 
broken  hearts  because  they  did  not  believe  the 
statement  that  in  three  days  He  should  rise 
again. 

It  is  only  a  repetition  of  a  process  which 
had  occurred  millions  of  times  before  and  as 
many  times  since,  in  the  history  of  every 
movement  on  earth  toward  God.  They  have 
had  their  gloomy  hours;  their  times  of  un- 
belief ;  their  moments  of  doubt — and  you  have 

66 


had  yours,  and  I  have  come  now  to  counsel 
with  you  about  it. 

Many  things  occur  that  we  do  not  believe 
will  occur,  and  it  is  strange  that  we  do  not 
learn,  after  them,  to  have  more  faith  and  more 
cheer. 

When  I  was  born  there  were  no  railroads 
across  the  country;  you  could  not  go  at  the 
rate  of  a  mile  a  minute  toward  any  quarter 
of  the  globe  When  I  was  born  there  was  no 
way  of  crossing  the  ocean  in  steamships.  We 
were  far,  far  away  from  the  old  country  when 
I  was  born.  When  I  was  born  we  had  no 
telegraph;  no  way  of  sending  by  wire  com- 
munications from  one  place  to  another.  Only 
as  recent  as  when  I  was  born  there  were  no 
telephones ;  no  such  thing  as  dynamite.  There 
are  a  thousand  things  now  that  I  need  not 
recite  that  people  did  not  believe  would  ever 
come  to  pass.  If  Jesus  had  said  you  would 
speak  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco  and 
be  distinctly  heard  there,  no  one  would  have 
believed  that  then,  but  miracles  are  ever  re- 
peating themselves.  No  one  believed  that 
you  would  travel  in  the  air,  but  now  there  are 
regular  airship  lines  from  place  to  place 
through  the  air. 

Who  would  have  believed  that  in  one  single 

67 


UNUSED  POWERS 


epoch  we  would  have  made  the  advance  in 
medical  and  surgical  science,  so  as  to  save 
lives  as  they  were  not  saved  then  except  by 
miracle?  Who  would  have  believed  in  the 
advance  of  civilization  so  that  millions  would 
dwell  together,  with  consideration  for  each 
community's  health  and  safety?  Who  would 
have  believed  that  the  Christian  Church  would 
have  reached  its  millions,  with  preachers  sta- 
tioned in  every  quarter  of  the  world?  Though 
Jesus  said,  "Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and 
preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature" — no 
person  believed  it  could  be  done. 

There  are  so  many  things  done  which  we 
did  not  believe  could  be  done  that  it  should 
make  us  pause.  When  any  person  of  trust- 
worthiness makes  a  statement  beyond  our 
present  belief,  be  careful  what  you  say  can- 
not be  done. 

It  was  only  a  short  time  ago  that  a  man 
apparently  drowned  was  dragged  out  of  the 
sea  at  Narragansett,  and  laid  down  upon  the 
ground  for  dead.  They  called  a  physician, 
who  said  he  was  dead,  and  they  made  arrange- 
ments to  carry  the  body  back  across  the 
boardwalk  and  the  mother  came,  an  old  gray- 
haired  woman,  and  she  said,  "Oh,  isn't  there 
anything  that  can  be  done  for  him?"  "No," 

68 


UNUSED  POWERS 


they  said,  "nothing  more  can  be  done."  Yet 
there  came  along  a  young  man  who  was  some- 
thing of  an  athlete,  an  expert  swimmer.  He 
said,  "Why  don't  we  try;  why  don't  we  try?" 
Maybe  he  is  only  insensible — not  wholly 
dead."  Although  they  could  not  detect  any 
beating  of  the  heart.  So  they  began  to  work 
on  him,  trying  a  method  used  in  cases  less 
desperate,  and  they  worked  on  him  for  fifteen 
or  twenty  minutes  with  no  signs  of  life,  and 
every  one  said,  "You  cannot  do  anything  with 
him — it  is  useless,"  and  the  old  mother  knelt 
upon  the  sand  praying  to  the  Lord  to  save  her 
son.  "Save  my  son,"  she  cried,  and  yet  she 
did  not  believe  it  could  be  done.  Yet,  a  few 
minutes  later,  there  came  evidences  of  return 
to  life,  and  the  lungs  were  made  to  expand  by 
artificial  process,  the  heart  resumed  its  normal 
beat,  and  the  man  came  back  to  full  health. 
They  did  not  believe  it  could  be  done.  The 
reason  I  mention  this  case  is  because  the  very 
next  year  there  was  a  similar  accident  at  the 
same  place,  the  same  witnesses  who  were  pres- 
ent at  the  former  restoration  did  not  believe 
it  could  be  done  the  second  time.  The  man 
was  saved  the  second  time,  and  yet  the  same 
doubts  came  to  them,  "It  cannot  be  done." 
Yet  since  that  time,  by  appliances  that  have 

69 


UNUSED  POWERS 


been  furnished  by  scientific  advancement,  a 
person  can  be  restored  who  has  seemingly 
been  drowned  for  a  long  time.  I  do  not  re- 
member exactly  the  time  which  the  convention 
of  medical  men  held  recently  stated  in  their 
discussion,  within  which  life  could  be  restored 
to  a  drowning  person,  but  I  think  they  men- 
tioned cases  where  a  man  had  been  seemingly 
drowned  for  half  an  hour  who  had  been  re- 
stored to  life. 

The  Apostles  did  not  believe  that  Jesus 
could  descend  into  the  tomb,  lay  there  for 
three  days  and  then  take  His  life  up  again. 
I  once  had  a  woman  visit  me,  who  wished  to 
know  whether  it  would  be  right  to  commit 
suicide,  and  she  was  in  such  deep  despair  that 
I  said  to  my  congregation  one  Sunday,  "I  do 
not  know  where  she  is  tonight,  whether  her 
body  is  floating  down  the  Delaware ;  whether 
she  returned  to  her  life  of  sin,  or  whether  she 
had  reformed;  I  told  them  that  she  had  no 
one  to  whom  she  would  go  for  help,  no  friends 
or  relatives.  Since  then  I  received  a  letter 
from  her  in  which  she  states  that  she  had 
turned  around  completely,  and  the  thing  she 
most  feared  did  not  come  to  pass  at  all.  Her 
reformed  life  was  a  possibility  she  had  not 
believed.  She  was  sure  it  could  not  be  done, 

70 


UNUSED  POWERS 


and  yet  in  a  very  few  weeks'  time  she  had 
turned  unto  the  Lord,  as  she  said  in  a  letter 
to  her  friend,  who  thought  it  was  impossible. 
Nothing  is  impossible  with  the  Lord. 

A  man  in  a  country  town  in  Massachusetts 
was  arrested  for  breaking  into  a  house,  though 
he  did  not  understand  it  was  burglary.  But 
he  broke  in  with  bad  motives;  and  conse- 
quently he  was  arrested,  tried  for  burglary, 
convicted  and  sent  to  prison  for  five  years. 
When  that  young  man,  only  twenty-two 
years  of  age,  came  out  of  that  prison  every 
one  told  him,  "Your  life  is  blasted  for  all 
time."  They  had  said  it  to  thousands  of 
ethers  and  they  believed  it,  but  this  young 
man  did  not  believe  it.  Not  one  of  his  friends 
would  listen  to  him;  no  one  but  his  old  mother, 
none  of  his  family  relations,  would  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  him.  They  told  him  he  had 
disgraced  them  all  and  to  get  out  of  town. 
But  he  said,  "I  am  going  to  live  right;  I  am 
going  to  stay  right  here  and  face  the  disgrace 
and  live  it  down."  He  went  to  the  preacher, 
and  the  good  preacher  said,  "I  would  advise 
you  to  go  somewhere  else;  if  you  come  into 
my  congregation  the  Christian  people  will 
shun  you.  No  good  family  will  speak  to  you. 
You  cannot  get  along  in  this  town."  But  the 

71 


UNUSED  POWERS 


young  man,  believing  that  it  could  be  done, 
said,  "I  will  sit  in  the  back  pew  or  stand  by 
the  door;  I  will  go  down  these  streets  here 
where  I  have  lived,  and  I  will  go  to  church 
every  Sunday  and  win  back  the  respect  I  lost 
since  I  have  been  in  prison."  Thousands  of 
men  have  said,  "That  is  impossible."  They 
have  come  forth  from  the  gates  of  the  prisons 
of  our  own  city ;  I  have  seen  many  of  them  in 
the  years  past  when  in  the  sorrow  of  their 
irrepressible  grief,  they  say,  "There  is  nothing 
more  for  me  but  go  on  in  crime  again  or  die 
of  starvation."  But  that  young  man  believed 
it  could  be  done.  He  began  to  live  down  his 
old  life,  and  now  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  he  has  been  for  fourteen  years 
one  of  our  great  statesmen,  he  has  accumu- 
lated large  wealth  and  rebuilt  the  very  church 
where  people  would  not  welcome  him.  He  is 
one  of  our  noblest  men,  although  he  spent  five 
years  in  prison  for  burglary,  but  he  lived  it  all 
down  because  he  said,  "It  could  be  done!" 

I  saw  a  man  one  day  reeling  along  the 
street  and  said  to  him,  "My  friend,  you  have 
been  drinking  too  much;  can  I  assist  you  to 
your  home?"  He  replied,  "I  don't  drink;  I 
want  you  to  understand  that  I  don't  drink." 
Well,  his  breath  plainly  told  me  that  he  was 

72 


UNUSED  POWERS 


intoxicated,  and  I  said  to  him,  "You  have 
been  drinking  too  much;  you  don't  walk  as 
straight  as  I  do,  and  I  have  the  rheumatism." 
He  turned  to  me  with  a  smile  and  said,  "Part- 
ner, I  am  a  disgrace ;  a  disgrace  to  everybody; 
I  don't  want  to  go  home."  When  a  friend 
came  along  and  took  charge  of  him,  I  said, 
"My  man,  you  don't  need  to  be  a  disgrace  to 
your  family ;  you  can  reform."  But  he  would 
insist  on  saying,  "I  cannot  reform;  it  is  too 
late ;  I  have  gotten  such  an  appetite  that  there 
is  no  use  of  my  trying;  I  cannot  go  by  a 
saloon  without  going  in;  I  would  go  crazy  if 
1  did  not  have  my  drink;  it  is  all  too  late." 
Other  drunkards  have  said  it  continually,  "It 
is  too  late;  it  cannot  be  done,"  and  yet  you  do 
not  need  to  go  a  hundred  yards  from  where 
you  sit  tonight  to  find  men  who  were  just  as 
deep  under  that  temptation  as  any  man  you 
know,  and  yet  they  sit  here,  clothed  in  their 
right  minds,  respectable  citizens.  It  can  be 
done. 

Two  boys  who  had  inherited  a  mill  stood 
after  the  fire  on  the  side  of  the  road — not  even 
a  wall  of  the  mill  left — all  gone;  everything 
they  had  was  taken  away,  and  the  two  boys 
discussed  what  they  would  do.  They  both 
said,  "There  does  not  seem  to  be  much  hope 

73 


UNUSED  POWERS 


for  us;  not  much  hope  for  us."  One  of  them 
said,  "I  believe  we  had  better  give  up  the  idea 
of  doing  anything  here — better  not  try,  but 
the  other  boy  said,  "I  want  to  think  it  over; 
I  believe  something  can  yet  be  done  in  this 
place.  The  two  brothers  separated,  children 
of  the  same  father  and  mother,  brought  up 
in  the  same  home,  having  the  same  education, 
the  same  classes  in  school,  the  same  disposi- 
tion, the  same  amount  of  courage,  and  they 
parted  company  the  next  morning,  one  of 
them  to  go  to  the  city,  and  the  other  stayed 
where  the  mill  had  been  destroyed.  The  boy 
believed  it  could  be  done,  and  other  people 
said,  "No  use  of  your  trying  it."  But  the 
other  day  when  I  was  passing  by  on  the  train 
I  saw  fifteen  great  mills  where  that  mill  had 
stood,  and  all  owned  by  the  boy  who  had  said, 
"I  will  stay  and  rebuild  this  mill  again."  The 
other  boy,  I  don't  know  where  he  is;  I  don't 
think  he  even  owns  his  own  home;  has  prob- 
ably not  more  than  enough  to  pay  his  board 
and  his  clothes,  while  the  other  brother  who 
believed  it  could  be  done  has  an  income  from 
millions. 

It  has  been  said  that  "you  cannot  cure 
paralysis;  that  there  is  no  cure  for  it;  might 
as  well  let  the  children  die  who  have  it." 

74 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Yet  we  are  finding  cures  for  paralysis.  Chil- 
dren who  are  afflicted  with  paralysis  and  are 
cured  right  along,  perhaps  all  of  them,  so  far 
as  I  know.  Anyhow  a  cure  for  paralysis  has 
been  found,  but  so  long  as  the  doctors  said, 
"It  cannot  be  done,"  there  was  no  progress 
made.  But  now  that  we  have  believed  it  can 
be  done,  we  have  discovered  that  children  do 
not  need  to  be  thus  afflicted,  and  we  shall, 
probably,  soon  reach  a  point  where  we  will  be 
able  to  say  when  paralysis  strikes  a  child,  that 
if  action  is  taken  immediately,  the  child  will 
never  die  from  that  disease.  We  are  coming 
to  that.  People  say  it  canot  be  done — "It 
cannot  be  done!"  We  will  find  an  entire  cure 
for  it  very  soon,  and  the  only  way  to  find  it  is 
to  believe  it  can  be  done  and  go  after  it. 
That's  the  way  to  find  out  about  it.  We  have 
power. 

We  are  tempted  beyond  measure;  we  fall 
into  temptation  and  we  believe  we  cannot  es- 
cape, and  yet  the  Saviour  says  that  He  will 
come  in  and  help  us  so  that  we  will  not  fall 
into  temptation  if  we  do  our  part.  WHOEVER 

WILL  MAY  BE  SAVED  FROM  TEMPTATION ! 

There  is  a  town  in  Pennsylvania  where  fire 
swept  the  entire  village.  Nothing  was  left 
but  ashes  on  the  sides  of  the  streets,  and  the 

75 


UNUSED  POWERS 


people  came  together  and  talked  it  over  and 
most  of  them  said,  "Nothing  can  be  done;  we 
have  lost  all."  Nearly  every  person  said, 
"We  have  lost  everything;  there  is  nothing  to 
build  with ;  there  is  nothing  here  to  start  with 
again;  no  use  in  trying  again."  Finally  an 
old  lady  who  had  lived  in  town  but  a  short 
time  made  a  speech  in  which  she  said  to  them, 
"Begin  now !  Have  faith  in  God  and  faith  in 
yourselves  and  begin  now — all  you  who  be- 
lieve it  can  be  done  start  together  now." 
Now  no  finer  streets  are  walked  by  the  feet  of 
man  than  those  trod  by  the  feet  of  the  people 
of  that  noble  city,  where  they  returned  among 
those  ashes  to  put  up  their  buildings  and 
begin  business  again  under  the  greatest  diffi- 
culties. People  would  not  loan  them  money 
because  there  was  nothing  to  give  as  security. 
But  now  that  grand  and  beautiful  city  stands 
there  in  all  its  activity,  with  its  schools  and  its 
business  blocks,  and  its  churches  sending  their 
spires  to  the  heavens,  because  the  people  be- 
lieved they  had  power. 

I  was  once  called  in  to  attend  a  meeting 
when  a  large  church  in  Boston  had  been 
burned  for  the  second  time.  I  had  been  a 
member  of  the  church  before  that  meeting, 
though  I  was  not  a  member  at  that  time.  The 

76 


UNUSED  POWERS 


meeting  was  held  in  an  adjoining  hall.  The 
treasurer  read  a  statement  at  that  meeting 
that  the  mortgage  was  so  great  and  the  insur- 
ance so  small  that  the  church  was  in  debt  to 
the  amount  of  $118,000.  It  was  a  most  dis- 
couraging thing,  and  many  of  them  felt  like 
running  away.  But  one  good  old  man,  God 
bless  him,  got  up  and  said,  "I  believe  it  can 
be  rebuilt.  I  believe  we  have  power  to  raise 
the  money  and  pay  our  debt,  if  we  go  at  it 
with  faith  in  God  and  construct  another  build- 
ing in  its  place."  Today,  that  congregation 
worships  in  the  largest  church  in  all  the  east. 
Today  that  church  worships  in  a  building  that 
cost  $600,000;  today  a  mighty  congregation 
attends  its  services  because  a  few  men  believed 
it  could  be  done,  when  many  were  ready  to 
say,  "It  cannot  be  done." 

When  our  own  church  in  Philadelphia  was 
built  people  said,  "It  can  never  be  paid  for; 
it  is  too  great  an  undertaking  for  so  few  peo- 
ple," and  it  was  hard  for  us  to  see  that  it  could 
ever  be  done.  There  were  many  who  said  that 
it  could  not  be  done.  There  were  many  peo- 
ple who  left  the  church  because  they  were  so 
afraid  we  would  get  so  in  debt  that  we  could 
never  get  out  of  it.  They  said,  "It  cannot  be 
done."  But  here  we  are,  worshiping  this 

77 


UNUSED  POWERS 


evening,  and  we  have  the  church  so  nearly 
paid  for  that  we  will  wipe  out  all  the  indebt- 
edness very  soon,  and  we  have  paid  for  it 
over  and  over  again  in  the  work  we  have  done 
for  the  world,  and  yet  many  people  said,  "It 
cannot  be  done." 

Jesus  said,  "I  can  lay  down  my  life  and  I 
can  take  it  up  again."  Many  persons  who  are 
lost  and  far  from  God  say,  "There  is  no  use 
of  my  trying  to  repent;  I  have  fallen  from 
grace ;  it  can't  be  done.  But  J  say  to  you  to- 
night, "It  can  be  done."  We  can  rise  again; 
man  can  get  up  again  from  the  worst  condi- 
tion of  sin;  from  the  worst  condition  of  pov- 
erty ;  from  the  worst  condition  of  ignorance — 
he  can  rise  again.  O  that  I  could  put  these 
words  into  the  life  of  every  person  who  hears 
me,  so  that  he  would  take  them  home  with 
him!  "I  CAN  RISE  AGAIN!"  We  may  have 
been  discouraged;  we  may  have  been  de- 
feated; we  may  have  gone  down  to  sorrow 
and  trials  seemingly  to  their  extremes  until 
we  said,  "We  cannot  go  down  any  further ;  we 
cannot  get  back  what  we  have  lost,  but  as  sure 
as  God  is  God  and  hope  is  hope,  and  faith  is 
faith,  in  every  man  there  lives  a  resurrection 
power — he  can  return!  If  he  has  lost  every- 
thing he  can  get  it  back  again.  If  he  has  lost 

78 


UNUSED  POWERS 


anything  of  worth  beyond  money  he  can  get 
it  back  again,  and  if  he  does  not  live  again  in 
this  lif e  he  can  live  to  the  perfection  of  happi- 
ness in  the  life  over  there. 

Christ  said,  "When  I  la*  down  my  life  I 
will  rise  again."  Ask  yourselves  why  He 
rose  again.  It  was  not  necessary  to  Him  to 
rise  again,  to  come  back  to  this  earthly  life 
again  and  live  for  forty  days  among  His  dis- 
ciples. For  what  purpose  was  it?  It  was  to 
confirm  the  truth  of  what  He  had  said  con- 
cerning His  teaching  throughout  the  three 
years  of  His  ministry.  It  was  to  set  the  seal 
upon  His  divinity  in  the  eyes  of  His  disciples. 
It  was  to  teach  them  that  though  we  go  down 
to  the  very  depth  yet  we  can  rise  again.  We 
can  do  it  in  ten  thousand  ways  in  our  daily 
lives — we  can  live  again.  If  we  have  lost  all 
we  had  we  can  get  it  back ;  if  we  have  lost  our 
property  we  can  get  it  again ;  we  can  rise  from 
the  dead.  This  is  the  great  lesson  for  those 
who  do  not  believe  there  is  a  possibility  for 
you  to  rise  to  higher  and  better  things. 

But  the  greatest  lesson  lies  in  the  fact  that 
Christ  rose  from  the  dead  and  gave  assurance 
to  all  the  world  that  His  teachings  were  true, 
and  He  was  the  Son  of  the  living  God  and 
whom  even  death  could  not  hold ;  to  make  true 

79 


UNUSED  POWERS 


His  saying  that  "though  I  go  down  to  death 
I  have  power  to  rise  again,"  and  He  said  the 
power  He  had  for  Himself  He  would  give 
unto  us,  that  we  should  have  that  power  to 
rise  again  when  we  go  down  to  death  and  to 
rise  in  that  eternal  world. 

My  mind  has  been  much  centered  on  the 
fact  that  nearly  every  person  that  hears  me 
or  reads  the  things  I  write  has  met  with  some 
disappointment;  some  trouble;  some  tempta- 
tion; given  way  to  some  sin,  and  feel  perhaps 
that  there  is  no  use  in  trying  again.  But  I 
appeal  to  you  all  out  of  a  brother's  heart  that 
you  turn  around  and  say,  "It  can  be  done;  I 
can  rise  again!"  Ask  God  to  help  you  and 
will  to  do  it. 

Rise  up  in  Christ  Jesus!  Be  a  better 
Christian  if  you  have  professed  Christ  before, 
and  if  you  have  never  professed  Christ  accept 
Him.  You  can  rise  into  His  image.  You 
have  the  power  through  the  overcoming 
Christ. 


80 


VI 
WILL  YOU  BE  MISSED? 

MY  text  is  in  the  twentieth  chapter  of 
First  Samuel,  verse  eighteen:  "Then 
Jonathan  said  to  David,  Tomorrow  is 
the  new  moon:  and  thou  shalt  be  missed,  be- 
cause thy  seat  will  be  empty." 

The  reason  why  David  was  missed  is  some- 
thing that  is  worthy  of  the  attention  of  every 
man  and  woman.  It  contains  a  great  truth. 

A  man  is  known  by  the  company  he  don't 
keep ;  and  he  is  also  known  by  the  things  he 
don't  do.  We  often  speak  of  the  converse 
of  this  statement,  but  we  do  not  emphasize 
this. 

Now  David  was  missed  because  he  was 
hated  by  bad  men.  That  was  to  his  credit,  to 
the  honour  of  his  position  as  a  young  man. 
He  left  his  home  and  all  hopes  of  future  pro- 
motion when  he  had  the  promise  that  he 
should  be  made  the  head  of  the  nation,  that 
he  should  be  made  King.  But  he  left  it  all. 
It  is  a  great  thing,  young  men  and  women,  to 

81 


UNUSED  POWERS 


be  hated  by  bad  men.  Woe  unto  you  when  all 
men  speak  well  of  you.  Woe  unto  you  when 
you  have  no  enemies,  because  no  man  can  be 
right  without  sometimes  crossing  the  track  of 
those  who  are  wrong. 

David  was  hated  by  the  politicians;  by 
those  wild  and  savage,  those  brutal  and  bar- 
barous tribes  along  the  shores  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. He  was  hated  by  them  all,  for  they 
had  tried  to  rob  him,  they  had  tried  to  murder 
his  people;  and  no  one  is  injured  so  much  as 
he  who  injures  another.  No  man  hates  a 
transgressor  so  much  as  the  transgressor 
hates  his  victim.  Palestine  hated  all  Israel 
and  all  the  Jews,  and  especially  hated  this 
young  man.  To  be  hated  by  bad  men  is  a 
great  accomplishment  for  a  young  man. 

George  B.  Angell  started  the  Society  for 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  and  he 
loved  the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  the  dogs  and 
the  cats,  and  the  horses,  and  he  seemed  to 
have  a  sympathy  for  them  beyond  anything  I 
have  ever  seen;  and  very  frequently  in  my 
law  office  I  was  called  upon  to  represent  the 
Society  when  people  were  arrested  for  brutal 
treatment  of  their  animals — and  George  B. 
Angell  was  the  most  hated  man  in  Boston. 
And  after  he  had  carried  on  that  campaign 

82 


UNUSED  POWERS 


for  about  ten  years  he  was  despised  by  all  the 
people  who  had  been  arrested,  and  by  their 
friends,  and  he  was  feared  by  all  those  who 
did  not  take  care  of  their  animals,  and  he  was 
in  the  disfavour  of  a  certain  class  of  people 
whom  he  had  offended.  One  day  Wendell 
Phillips,  in  introducing  him  on  a  public  oc- 
casion to  speak  for  the  Society,  said:  "Those 
who  love  animals  and  defend  them  cannot  be 
defended  by  animals,  but  they  are  attacked  by 
men;  and  let  it  be  said  to  Brother  Angell's 
credit  that  he  has  more  enemies  in  Boston 
than  any  other  man  I  know,  and  all  those 
enemies  are  among  the  worst  classes  of  the 
city."  What  a  great  credit  it  was  to  say  that 
of  George  B.  Angell. 

It  is  not  so  many  years  since  Anthony 
Comstock  first  began  to  carry  on  his  great 
campaign  in  the  city  of  New  York  against 
obscene  literature,  and  the  low,  and  the 
wicked,  and  the  vile  of  that  great  city  hated 
Anthony  Comstock,  and  his  views  were  held 
up  to  contumely  and  insult,  and  he  was  often 
mobbed  on  the  streets.  Yet  what  was  it  to 
him  to  be  mobbed  for  a  cause  such  as  he 
represented ! 

A  short  time  ago  William  J.  Burns,  the 
eminent  detective,  was  the  most  unpopular 

83 


UNUSED  POWERS 


man  in  the  whole  country,  because  he  arrested 
so  many  men  under  various  circumstances, 
and  all  their  friends  and  all  parties  connected 
with  them  were  deeply  prejudiced  against 
him;  and  it  took  Burns  years  to  overcome 
those  enemies  which  have  arisen  against  him 
among  the  criminal  classes  of  this  country. 

Time  was  when  Washington  was  so  un- 
popular that  there  was  open  talk  about  im- 
peaching him  as  President  of  the  United 
States.  He  was  accused  by  politicians  as  a 
mere  schemer,  a  man  whose  word  could  not 
be  trusted ;  a  man  who  misused  public  funds. 
And  yet  the  men  who  accused  him,  when  you 
study  the  history  of  their  lives,  you  will  find, 
were  a  wicked,  low  class ;  many  of  them  ended 
in  the  penitentiary,  and  some  of  them  mur- 
dered other  people,  as  was  the  case  with 
Aaron  Burr.  George  Washingtan  was  hated, 
and  it  is  to  his  honour  that  we  speak  of  it, 
He  was  hated  by  bad  men. 

I  remember  Lincoln's  unpopularity  at  a 
time  when  he  was  endeavouring  to  make  com- 
promises with  the  Southern  States  in  order  to 
settle  the  war;  when  he  was  in  favour  of  ex- 
treme forbearance,  and  the  people  of  the 
North  as  well  as  of  the  South  seemed  to  be 
opposed  to  that  merciful  measure;  and  Lin- 

84 


UNUSED  POWERS 


coin  then  hardly  dared  go  down  the  street  for 
fear  of  a  mob  attacking  him. 

On  Memorial  Days,  when  we  especially 
bring  to  mind  characters  like  that  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  let  us  learn  the  great  truth  that 
he  who  is  hated  of  bad  men  will  be  honoured 
of  God. 

I  remember  walking  over  the  fields  in  West 
Brookfield,  Massachusetts,  and  seeing  the 
homestead  of  Lucy  Stone  Blackwell,  that 
great  woman  advocate  of  women's  rights  and 
that  advocate  of  liberty  of  every  kind  for  men 
and  women,  and  it  brought  to  my  mind  how 
strangely  Christ  used  that  girl  in  West 
Brookfield.  She  was  a  person  of  high  and 
noble  impulses,  of  pure  mind,  of  culture  and 
intellect,  and  she  behaved  herself  like  a  lady 
almost  at  every  point.  But  she  did  a  very 
unladylike  thing — so  the  local  people  there 
thought.  There  was  a  colored  boy  who 
worked  around  the  railroad  station  at  West 
Brookfield,  and  when  a  boy  had  his  arm  crip- 
pled ;  and  he  went  out  to  pick  berries,  and  the 
white  boys  and  girls  also  went  out  into  the 
berry  field,  and  the  white  boys  began  to  pelt 
this  colored  boy  with  stones  and  sticks.  But 
little  Lucy  Stone  Blackwell,  though  small 
then,  saw  the  injustice  of  the  attack  by  the 

85 


wicked  white  boys  upon  this  defenseless,  crip- 
pled colored  boy  and  she  went  out  with  a  pail 
half  full  of  berries  and  smashed  it  over  the 
head  of  one  of  the  white  boys  about  to  throw 
a  stone.  From  that  day  on  to  the  end  of  her 
life  she  was  honoured  by  America  as  one  of 
the  most  lovely  of  women.  Then  there  was 
Lucretia  Mott,  and  she  was  one  of  the  most 
loved  of  women.  She  gained  attention  every- 
where and  the  respect  even  of  the  worst 
classes  of  people;  but  Lucy  Stone  Blackwell 
had  the  enmity  of  people  because  of  her  fierce, 
open,  brave  attacks  against  all  things  that 
were  wrong,  and  an  illustration  that  comes  to 
my  mind  is  found  in  the  love  letter  which  her 
husband  before  their  marriage  wrote  to  her 
mother,  and  in  that  letter  Mr.  Blackwell  said: 

"I  love  her  for  the  enemies  that  she  has 
made." 

I  remember  hearing,  not  long  ago,  of  a  boy 
who  used  to  stand  in  front  of  the  Sherman 
House  in  Chicago  some  years  ago.  He  was 
the  only  child  of  a  widow,  and  he  was  obliged 
to  earn  his  living  by  selling  papers.  But  he 
was  greatly  disliked  by  the  other  newsboys 
because  he  went  to  evening  school  to  learn 
something  and  they  did  not,  and  he  attracted 
the  other  newsboys'  jealousy  for  that  reason. 

86 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Another  reason  why  he  was  disliked  was  that 
he  often  spoke  of  his  mother.  The  boys  made 
sport  of  him  for  being  a  "mother's  boy"  and 
of  being  tied  to  his  mother's  apron  strings. 
Sometimes  they  invited  him  to  smoke,  and 
then  they  asked  him  to  play  craps.  But  he 
would  not  do  either.  Because  he  would  not 
do  any  of  those  things  that  newsboys  so  often 
do  which  are  wrong  he  was  disliked  by  them, 
and  they  would  not  speak  to  him.  When  he 
became  Miss  Willard's  stenographer  he  was 
disliked,  because  he  determined  in  that  office 
to  be  the  very  best  stenographer  in  the  place. 
He  was  so  accurate,  he  was  so  careful,  he  was 
so  conscientious  and  worked  often  so  long 
after  hours  that  he  became  very  unpopular. 
All  the  other  stenographers  would  leave 
promptly  at  five  o'clock,  but  he  would  often 
stay  until  half  past  five,  and  was  assailed 
before  the  labor  unions.  He  was  so  faithful, 
doing  his  duty  to  the  full,  that  he  became  very 
unpopular.  When  he  was  in  college  he  was 
at  the  head  of  the  class  because  he  always  had 
his  lessons  thoroughly  prepared.  He  was 
often  referred  to  as  authority  when  any  ques- 
tions between  professor  and  students  arose, 
and  he  has  been  for  years  the  head  of  the 
State  University  of  West  Virginia.  He  has 

87 


UNUSED  POWERS 


been  known  as  the  youngest  of  all  our  col- 
lege presidents. 

But  David  was  missed  not  only  because  he 
had  done  his  work  well  and  because  wicked 
men  were  against  him,  but  he  was  missed 
because  he  had  so  many  people  dependent 
upon  him. 

J.  H.  Patterson,  of  the  National  Cash 
Register  Company,  of  Dayton,  Ohio,  made 
himself  at  one  time  the  most  unpopular  of 
men  by  trying  to  do  good.  When  he  started 
in  business  he  started  out  with  the  purpose  of 
employing  many  people ;  he  determined  to  be 
of  more  use  to  his  employes  than  to  simply 
give  them  wages.  So  one  day  he  desired  to 
clean  up  that  section  of  Dayton  near  his 
factory,  and  he  went  around  personally  and 
called  on  the  people,  asking  them  if  they 
would  not  clean  up  their  front  yards  and  back 
yards,  in  order  that  the  town  might  be  more 
sanitary.  Some  of  them  complied  with  his 
wishes  and  others  said  it  was  none  of  his  busi- 
ness, and  were  offended.  But  he  determined 
to  bring  them  in  time.  He  secured  a  photog- 
rapher to  go  around  the  places  where  the 
fences  were  down  and  the  gate  was  hanging 
on  one  hinge  and  where  the  rubbish  was  scat- 
tered around  the  yard,  and  took  a  picture  of 

88 


each  one  of  those  places  and  exhibited  the 
pictures  as  a  disgrace  to  the  city  of  Dayton. 
It  made  him  exceedingly  unpopular  for  the 
time ;  and  if  you  will  go  to  that  great  factory, 
one  of  the  largest  on  earth,  supporting  so 
many  families,  sending  so  many  children  to 
school,  supporting  so  many  churches  in  the 
worship  of  God,  you  will  find  there  the  spirit 
of  the  love  of  mankind  which  Mr.  Patterson 
put  into  it. 

When  a  man  enters  any  political  undertak- 
ing he  must  expect  to  have  enemies.  You 
cannot  be  mayor  of  a  city  without  having  ene- 
mies ;  because  for  eveiy  office  you  will  have 
many  people  applying.  Consequently,  you 
will  have  five  hundred  and  fifty-nine  disap- 
pointed out  of  every  five  hundred  and  sixty- 
applicants.  Where  you  keep  one  friend  to 
whom  you  gave  the  position,  you  will  have 
five  hundred  and  fifty-nine  enemies  among 
those  who  were  disappointed  in  not  getting 
the  place.  The  President  of  the  United 
States  has  that  difficulty  to  contend  with 
from  those  who  seek  office,  both  in  his  own 
party  and  by  those  of  the  opposing  party. 
He  who  goes  into  any  public  office  must  make 
up  his  mind  that  he  is  going  to  meet  with 
strong,  unjust  opposition;  he  must  expect  it, 

89 


UNUSED  POWERS 


must  be  prepared  to  contend  with  it  and  con- 
tend with  it  in  a  reasonable  fraternal  way. 

Religious  undertakings,  the  reforms  for  the 
good  of  the  people  in  the  uplift  of  their  wor- 
ship, have  immediately  met  with  criticism,  for 
all  forms  of  opposition  arise  in  religious  work. 
There  is  no  time  when  men  seem  to  be  so 
willing  to  deceive,  and  lie,  and  steal,  and  even 
murder,  as  in  religious  bigotry.  Nothing  is 
more  bitter,  without  going  back  to  the  days 
of  the  inquisition,  than  the  superstitious  dis- 
agreement over  some  unimportant  question. 

David  was  especially  missed  because  so 
many  people  depended  on  him.  What  a 
beautiful  picture  to  see  husband  and  father 
going  away  from  home  in  the  morning,  taking 
his  dinner  pail,  standing  at  the  door,  bidding 
the  child  good-bye,  leaving  his  advice  and  his 
kiss,  turning  down  the  street,  and  then  to 
watch  them  looking  after  him.  They  are  go- 
ing to  miss  him  all  day.  They  will  anxiously 
wait  until  evening  time  comes  to  hear  his  re- 
turning footsteps  and  see  his  face.  They  will 
come  to  the  front  hall  to  meet  him  when  he 
comes  home,  because  they  have  missed  him. 
Oh,  man  or  woman,  is  there  no  one  to  miss 
you  after  you  go  away  from  home?  If  there 
is  no  one  on  hand  to  welcome  you  when  you 

90 


UNUSED  POWERS 


come  home  in  the  evening,  to  welcome  you 
with  a  kiss  of  love  when  you  enter  the  door, 
your  fate  is  a  sad  one.  How  sweet  a  thing  it 
is  to  be  missed,  and  what  a  duty  it  is  to  our 
Christ  and  to  God  that  we  should  live  that 
life  from  which  we  will  be  missed.  Oh,  the 
bread  winners  of  the  world,  who  go  out  to 
work  for  their  families — their  wives  and  their 
children!  When  death  comes  to  them,  and 
the  coffin  is  carried  to  the  cemetery,  and  the 
family  returns  to  the  darkness  of  that  home, 
oh,  how  he  is  missed !  Yet,  if  we  die,  and  are 
not  missed,  we  have  no  claim  to  eternal  life. 

There  were  many  dependent  upon  David, 
and  the  ambition  of  his  life  in  the  hope  to  be  a 
ruler  was  that  he  might  have  power  to  gather 
around  him  many  men  and  their  families  of 
the  nation  dependent  upon  him. 

I  have  been  very  much  interested  in  the  life 
of  Sir  Thomas  Lipton.  He  is  known  best, 
perhaps,  in  this  country  by  the  fact  that  he 
contended  for  the  "America"  cup  in  the  great 
yacht  races.  But  Sir  Thomas  Lipton's  early 
ambition  was  to  be  an  employer  of  other  peo- 
ple. Am  I  addressing  young  men  now  with 
life  before  you,  not  over  thirty-five  years  of 
age,  who  are  working  for  some  one  else,  com- 
plaining about  your  wages  and  about  the  poor 

91 


UNUSED  POWERS 


position  you  occupy?  You  should  be  an  em- 
ployer! There  are  many  people  who  are 
employers  now  who  had  less  opportunity  than 
you  have  had,  and  you  should  not  be  in  your 
situation  tonight — you  should  be  an  em- 
ployer. Sir  Thomas  Lipton  is  said  to  have 
been  a  young  man  in  the  city  of  New  York 
who  came  over  from  Scotland  to  seek  his  for- 
tune. He  sought  for  work.  Lord,  pity  the 
man  who  has  struggled  for  weeks  for  work 
and  has  found  it  not!  Nearly  sixteen  years 
of  age,  he  stood  there  on  John  Street,  in  New 
York,  in  front  of  a  little  grocery  store.  He 
had  no  means  to  go  in  and  buy  the  bread  he 
saw  in  that  window;  he  was  so  tired  that  his 
limbs  would  no  longer  carry  him,  and  he  sat 
down  in  front  of  that  store,  homeless,  friend- 
less, out  of  work.  The  good  man,  seeing  him 
there  as  he  closed  the  store,  gave  him  a  piece 
of  bread.  He  walked  away  and  sat  outside 
all  night.  But  on  that  night  he  said,  "Lord, 
give  me  the  opportunity  to  furnish  poor  men 
with  work!" 

The  ambition  came  to  him  then  and  there. 
God  must  have  put  him  through  that  experi- 
ence for  some  purpose ;  God  must  have  put  it 
into  his  mind  to  help  the  men  who  were  out 
of  work,  and  God's  providence  led  him  back 

92 


UNUSED  POWERS 


to  Glasgow,  where  his  father  assisted  him 
somewhat,  and  where  he  worked  very  late  and 
long  in  a  little  grocery  store  in  that  city.  His 
desire  was  to  employ  people.  He  had  such  a 
passion  for  it  that  his  father  hardly  dared 
trust  him  to  carry  on  the  business,  for  fear  of 
his  paying  away  all  his  money  to  the  people  he 
employed.  But  he  was  wise  enough  and  care- 
ful enough  to  recognize  the  fact  that  he  must 
take  care  of  his  own  capital  going  to  employ 
more  men.  He  opened  one  store  after  an- 
other, never  making  any  large  profits  for 
himself ;  but  now  he  has  stores  in  all  parts  of 
the  world.  He  owns  a  great  tea  plant  in 
Ceylon,  and  he  has  owned,  they  tell  me,  the 
very  store  before  which  he  stood  on  that  dark 
night,  hungry  and  wanting  something  to  do. 
He  is  one  of  the  wealthiest  men  of  the  world, 
yet  he  employed  all  his  capital  all  the  time  for 
the  further  enlargement  of  his  business  with 
the  desire  ever  to  employ  as  many  men  as 
possible. 

Leland  Stanford,  who  endowed  the  great 
Iceland  Stanford  University,  in  California,  is 
another  illustration  of  this  thought  of  David. 
He  was  born,  I  think,  in  New  York,  and  was 
living  in  Vermont  when  he  conceived  the  idea 
that  he  would  like  to  give  employment  to  all 

93 


UNUSED  POWERS 


the  school  boys  who  went  home  with  him.  He 
went  to  his  father  and  urged  the  father  to  em- 
ploy those  boys,  and  his  father  said  to  him: 
"If  you  want  to  employ  those  bright  boys,  I 
will  give  you  a  chance  to  do  so  yourself.  I 
wish  to  have  this  piece  of  land  cleared  of  tim- 
ber so  that  I  can  cultivate  it;  I  will  give  you 
the  lumber  and  you  may  sell  it,  and  you  may 
bring  to  aid  you  all  the  boys  you  choose,  only 
they  must  know  that  I  am  not  responsible  for 
their  wages."  Those  young  men  began  to 
clear  that  ground.  They  cut  1800  ties  for  the 
Delaware  and  Hudson  Railroad.  He  em- 
ployed seventeen  of  the  boys,  and  they 
worked  together  like  grown  men.  He  cleared 
only  $18.50.  But  that  was  the  foundation  of 
his  great  wealth.  For  a  little  later  than  that 
he  went  to  California,  and  there  he  adopted 
the  same  plan;  so  that  whenever  the  poor 
miners  came  to  the  city  and  wanted  work  he 
tried  to  furnish  all  these  poor  fellows  with 
work.  He  realized  that  the  great  need  in 
their  city  life  was  something  to  do.  That 
work  was  enlarged  until  he  had  4000  men  in 
his  employ;  and  when  the  time  came  that 
California  must  be  kept  in  the  National 
Union  or  go  to  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
congress  voted  to  aid  in  building  the  Pacific 

94 


railroads.  He  saw  the  opportunity  to  em- 
ploy a  great  many  people  on  that  railroad, 
and  it  was  on  the  10th  of  May,  1869,  that  he 
stood  at  the  junction  of  the  Central  Pacific 
Railroad,  out  at  Ogden,  where  they  gave  him 
one  spike  of  gold,  another  one  of  silver  and 
another  one  of  iron,  representing  the  Three 
States  centering  at  that  point,  and  he  drove 
down  the  last  three  spikes  of  that  great  con- 
nection between  the  East  and  the  West. 
What  a  great  privilege  it  was  for  him  to  re- 
turn home,  having  given  constant  employ- 
ment to  50,000  people.  It  did  his  heart  good, 
and  brought  considerable  profit  to  himself. 
It  enabled  him  to  give  a  million  dollars  to 
endow  the  Leland  Stanford  University. 

It  was  in  Wilbraham,  Mass.,  where  my 
brother  and  I  had  to  live  in  the  attic  of  an 
old,  unfurnished  farm  house,  with  the  rafters 
of  the  roof  all  bare  and  with  only  a  gable  win- 
dow at  one  end  of  the  house.  When  we  went 
there  to  "board  ourselves"  we  had  a  little 
stove,  on  which  we  had  to  cook  our  own  corn- 
meal,  and  we  found  it  necessary  to  have  a 
table.  The  good  old  man  who  owned  the 
place  said  there  was  a  rough  old  table  in  the 
garret  we  might  have.  We  brought  out  the 
old  table,  which  consisted  of  one  board  on 

95 


UNUSED  POWERS 


three  legs,  and  when  we  sat  down  for  the  first 
time  to  eat  our  cornmeal  my  brother  noticed 
the  name  of  Charles  Pratt  carved  upon  that 
table.  It  appeared  that  Charles  Pratt  had 
boarded  at  the  same  place  when  he  went  to 
school  there,  boarded  in  the  same  attic. 
When  I  was  called  upon  to  address  the  Pratt 
Institute  in  Brooklyn,  New  York,  a  few 
weeks  ago,  I  went  into  the  hall  where  hangs 
the  picture  of  Charles  Pratt,  the  great  bene- 
factor of  Brooklyn.  I  was  standing  before 
it,  and  there  was  a  sketch  of  his  biography. 
He  had  only  one  year  of  education  at  Wil- 
braham  Academy.  How  it  connected  the 
threads  of  history  back  to  "Charles  Pratt"  in 
that  old  attic !  He  could  only  afford  to  go  to 
school  one  year.  He  went  to  the  library  in 
Boston  and  there  studied  evenings  such  books 
as  he  could  get;  and  he  secured  a  very  thor- 
ough education,  after  all.  But  he  had  a 
passion  for  employing  men.  He  wanted  to 
employ  the  boys  and  girls,  and  it  was  such  a 
passion  with  him  that  he  sought  for  places 
where  he  had  no  interest  to  secure  employ- 
ment for  them,  and  he  employed  personally  as 
many  people  as  he  could  in  connection  with 
his  own  grocery  business  in  Watertown, 
Mass.  Afterward  he  went  into  the  produc- 

96 


UNUSED  POWERS 


tion  of  oil  and  became  one  of  the  millionaires 
of  that  day,  and  established  the  Pratt  Insti- 
tute, in  order  to  give  all  the  people  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  practical  education.  They  are 
doing  there  now  for  Brooklyn  what  the 
Temple  University  is  doing  for  Philadelphia. 
As  I  stood  there  and  looked  on  that  portrait, 
I  thought  how  Philadelphia  also  was  in- 
debted to  Charles  Pratt  for  employment  of 
its  people  in  five  of  the  great  industries  today 
in  which  he  took  much  stock  in  order  to  fur- 
nish men  with  work. 

Charles  Pratt,  when  he  died,  was  greatly 
missed.  The  city  of  Brooklyn  went  into 
deepest  mourning;  on  the  street  corners  they 
whispered  his  name;  over  6000  of  his  em- 
ployes stopped  work  for  the  day  and  wore 
crepe  upon  their  arms.  He  was  greatly  hon- 
oured and  loved,  because  he  furnished  people 
with  work,  and  was  one  of  the  greatest  phil- 
anthropists of  the  world. 

David,  in  the  third  place,  was  missed  be- 
cause he  was  "sincerely  loved."  Oh.  how 
Jonathan  loved  him !  Loved  him  with  a  sub- 
limer  affection  than  a  woman.  He  was 
greatly  beloved  by  men  and  honoured  by  them 
for  what  he  had  already  done,  and  more  for 
the  promise  of  what  he  was  to  be.  Even 

97 


Jonathan  told  him  that  he  was  to  be  King, 
and  Jonathan  was  willing  to  take  a  second 
place. 

I  stood  one  day  in  that  great  palace  where 
William  of  Orange  was  assassinated.  Few 
statesmen  or  warriors  were  ever  so  adored. 
The  people  of  Netherlands,  when  William  of 
Orange  was  killed,  were  so  filled  with  woe, 
they  missed  him  so  sadly,  they  loved  him  so 
much,  that  they  could  not  work.  The  histor- 
ian of  the  siege  of  Leyden  said  that  for  days 
the  people  could  not  work;  that  they  wept 
and  could  not  eat — they  missed  their  loved 
prince  of  Orange  so  much.  He  had  led  them 
through  great  religious  trials  and  persecu- 
tions. He  had  guided  them  with  kindness, 
tenderness  and  unselfishness,  and  he  was  con- 
sequently missed  beyond  any  citizen  of  that 
great  Netherland  nation.  No  citizen  of  the 
world,  except  Abraham  Lincoln,  was  ever 
missed  like  William  of  Orange. 

I  sat  on  a  platform  in  a  town  in  New  Jer- 
sey one  day  with  Mr.  Cattell,  who  told  how 
he  came  to  the  funeral  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
in  Independence  Square,  Philadelphia,  and 
stood  there  all  night  in  order  to  get  into 
that  line,  pass  that  coffin  and  look  upon 
the  face  of  the  martyred  President.  I  stood 

98 


UNUSED  POWERS 


by  that  coffin  before  it  reached  Philadelphia, 
when  it  was  opened  in  Washington.  Men 
came  up  to  that  coffin  with  trembling  hands, 
and  when  they  looked  upon  the  face  of 
that  great  man  they  burst  into  tears  and 
loud  wails — men  and  women  fainted,  t  filled 
with  grief  because  of  the  loss  of  "Old  Abe," 
"Father  Abraham,"  the  true  leader  of  the 
whole  nation,  loved  in  the  South  as  well  as  in 
the  North,  because  he  was  so  just  and  reason- 
able to  the  South.  Dying  as  he  did,  at  the 
time  he  did,  he  was  wept  for  in  almost  every 
Northern  home  and  in  every  Southern  home. 
If  they  did  not  weep,  they  treated  his  memory 
with  profound  respect. 

Oh,  to  be  missed!  It  is  one  of  the  great 
blessings  of  life  to  come  to  the  end  of  it  and 
to  be  so  loved  that  one  will  be  deeply  missed. 
Why  do  I  speak  of  this  life  of  David?  Be- 
cause it  is  a  great  illustration  from  the  Old 
Testament  of  what  Christ  teaches  in  the  New. 
It  brings  out  the  life  of  the  benefactor,  the 
one  who  has  helped  his  fellowmen — the  life  of 
him  who  lives  not  for  self,  but  for  others.  It 
teaches  that  he  who  lives  that  life  wins  the 
favour  of  Almighty  God. 

I  want  to  say  it  with  more  emphasis  than 
I  said  it  last  week,  especially  to  the  young 

99 


UNUSED  POWERS 


men  and  women :  Will  you  be  missed  for  your 
goodness?  Will  you  be  missed  by  those  who 
are  dependent  upon  you  for  your  help?  By 
those  who  love  you?  If  you  were  taken  away 
tomorrow,  how  much  would  you  be  missed? 
If  you  say  you  would  be  but  little  missed, 
then  turn  your  mind  to  greater  things.  De- 
termine to  be  of  more  service  under  God,  and 
for  Jesus  Christ's  sake  live  that  life  that  will 
in  the  years  to  come  unroll  and  develop  into 
that  fullness,  so  that  when  you  die  people  will 
weep ;  when  you  die  people  will  stand  still  and 
long  be  sad. 

Oh,  to  live  in  this  life  so  that  you  will  be 
missed  when  you  are  gone,  for  the  very  fact 
that  you  are  missed  will  carry  your  influence 
on  through  the  ages.  Christ,  when  He  left 
this  world,  was  missed — so  missed  that  the 
memory  of  Him  remains  in  mighty  power,  in- 
creasing in  power  through  the  ages.  That 
kind  of  life  is  the  life  that  counts  for  this 
world  as  well  as  for  the  life  to  come. 


100 


VII 
A  WELCOMING  SMILE 

I  WANT  to  take  forcible  possession  of  the 
eighth  verse  of  the  fourth  chapter  of  Sec- 
ond Timothy:  "Henceforth  there  is  laid 
up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness,  which  the 
Lord,  the  righteous  judge,  shall  give  me  at 
that  day." 

And  these  are  the  words  of  my  text,  "And 
not  to  me  only,  but  unto  all  them  that  love  his 
appearing." 

Sometimes,  with  the  artistic  work  of  the 
electrician,  elaborate  designs  have  been 
worked  out  in  lamps  of  various  colors  and 
have  been  placed  in  front  of  some  prominent 
building,  and  when  the  darkness  was  deepest 
some  man  turned  the  key  and  let  on  the  cur- 
rent. With  one  great  flood  of  dazzling  light 
the  entire  design  flashed  out  upon  the  aston- 
ished multitude.  So  when  one  goes  through 
this  book,  this  Bible,  he  sometimes  comes 
upon  a  thought  in  a  text  which  seems  sud- 
denly illuminated  by  a  spiritual  electric  force 

101 


UNUSED  POWERS 


and  flashes  out  with  a  superb  brilliancy  which 
startles  and  fills  with  awe  the  meditating 
mind.  This  text  is  one  of  those.  In  order  to 
get  the  full  sweep  of  the  meaning  of  these 
words,  "Unto  all  them  also  that  love  his  ap- 
pearing," one  needs  to  go  back  to  the  il- 
luminated words  of  the  Greek  language,  and 
when  you  put  them  into  a  reasonable  literary 
rendering,  using  other  English  words,  you 
may  add  something  to  the  language  here 
expressed  and  take  nothing  from  the  origi- 
nal. "Unto  all  them  who  will  smile  when  He 
comes." 

The  language  that  expresses  that  simple 
statement  is  a  language  as  brilliant  as  though 
fire  did  flash  from  every  letter.  Hear  it  once 
more,  "Not  unto  me  only,  but  unto  all  them 
who  will  smile  when  He  comes."  The  literal 
language  properly  used  may  also  read,  "That 
will  dawn  on  His  morning."  The  word  "ap- 
pearing" here  is  used  in  other  places  in  the 
Bible  to  mean  the  coming  of  the  morning,  and 
the  word  "love"  is  often  used  to  express  the 
word  "beaming,"  "smile,"  as  an  expression  of 
welcome. 

So  this  beautiful  text,  illuminated  by  the 
spirit  back  of  it,  must  have  had  a  stronger  im- 
pression upon  those  who  read  it  in  the  Greek 

102 


UNUSED  POWERS 


language,  which  so  many  of  us  lose  when  we 
read  it  in  the  English.  "Unto  all  them  that 
love  His  dawning" — "all  who  shall  smile  when 
He  comes." 

I  wonder  if  a  baby  ever  lived  which  never 
smiled  in  its  mother's  face?  Did  you  ever 
know  of  one?  But  suppose  that  it  were 
possible  for  a  baby  to  be  brought  up  by  its 
mother,  fed  from  her  breast,  pillowed  upon 
her  shoulder,  making  its  bed  in  her  arms, 
listen  to  her  cooing,  the  subject  of  her  cease- 
less day  and  night  care  throughout  all  its  de- 
veloping years,  and  never  smile  in  her  face. 
What  a  deformity  such  a  child  would  really 
be.  And  the  thought  in  my  mind  is,  Could  a 
mother  love  such  a  child  as  that?  Would  not 
her  heart  finally  turn?  Would  not  love  grow 
bitter  and  sour  and  become  poisonous,  and 
would  she  not  regard  the  babe  with  hate 
rather  than  love?  I  believe  she  would.  I  be- 
lieve the  time  would  come  when  that  mother 
love,  that  inexpressibly  strong  tie  of  affection, 
would  turn  to  hatred  if  the  child  never  smiled 
in  its  mother's  face. 

The  apostle,  in  the  original  language,  is 
touching  that  very  chord  of  human  nature 
when  he  says  that  there  is  a  crown  of  right- 
eousness for  every  soul  that  will  smile  when 

103 


UNUSED  POWERS 


He  comes.  What  makes  a  mother  love  her 
child?  It  is  the  smile  of  the  child.  If  the 
child  looks  up  from  its  cradle  and  smiles  in  its 
mother's  eyes  that  mother  can  sacrifice  any- 
thing for  that  child.  She  will  go  anywhere, 
through  fire  and  chill,  through  starvation  and 
exposure,  and  even  death  itself,  for  the  child 
who  smiles  in  her  face.  That  mother  who,  in 
Western  Pennsylvania,  was  driven  from  her 
father's  door  with  her  child  in  her  arms, 
looked  in  her  child's  face  as  it  smiled  up  into 
hers,  and  in  the  cold,  sifting  snows  of  that 
winter  storm,  ske  took  from  herself  the  wrap- 
pings which  she  needed  to  save  her  life  and 
wrapped  the  child  warmly  in  them  and  sat  in 
the  snow  and  died  for  the  child  that  smiled  in 
her  face.  You,  too,  would  die  for  a  child  that 
did  that.  It  is  the  very  best  part  of  the 
human  heart  that  it  thus  is  tied  with  bonds 
it  cannot  break  by  the  smiling  face  of  a 
loved  one. 

Suppose  that  friend  never  smiled  when  you 
did  anything  for  him.  Suppose  that  you  give 
a  Christmas  present,  and  there  is  nothing  but 
a  stolid  look  of  recognition — how  it  hurts; 
how  it  curdles  the  blood;  how  it  stings  in  the 
brain  to  have  an  obligation  unrecognized  by 
even  the  flitting  of  a  smile. 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Out  in  Arizona  I  saw  a  young  girl,  a  con- 
sumptive, who  was  being  cared  for  by  her 
brother.  It  was  worth  a  long  journey  to  see. 
Why,  he  anticipated  everything  that  his  sister 
wanted.  He  was  a  large,  strong  man,  seem- 
ingly rudely  built,  but  he  wholly  forgot  him- 
self in  the  care  of  his  sister.  He  would  wake 
up  at  the  slightest  motion  she  made  in  the 
train,  and  he  was  always  at  hand  to  see  if 
there  was  not  something  that  she  wanted.  He 
would  not  leave  her  in  the  train  at  all  to  go  to 
the  dining  car,  but  he  had  his  lunch  sent  in  to 
him,  and  he  sat  there  and  ate  it  with  her.  He 
tried  to  feed  her ;  he  would  take  off  her  shoes 
and  then  replace  them  with  slippers,  and  then 
I  saw  him  lift  her  up  tenderly  and  put  her  on 
a  couch  and  cover  her  up  as  a  mother  would 
a  child.  When  you  saw  that  suffering  one 
smile  as  she  looked  up  without  a  word  when 
he  laid  her  so  tenderly  down  you  would  say 
that  he  was  well  paid  for  it  all.  He  did  not 
lose  anything.  He  received  all  that  he  gave 
and  more,  with  interest,  in  the  smile  of  that 
loving,  dying  sister.  Oh,  it  makes  heroes  of 
men ;  it  makes  noble  the  lowest  grade  of  living 
to  have  that  smile  of  welcome  recognition 
come  back  for  the  things  that  are  done.  So 
the  apostle,  reaching  into  this  inner  sanctuary 

J05 


of  the  soul's  holiest  existence,  opens  the  door 
enough  for  us  to  glance  within,  and  says  that 
Christ,  the  very  heart  of  love — Christ,  the  su- 
preme model — Christ,  will  give  us  a  crown  of 
righteousness  if  we  meet  Him  with  a  smile,  a 
crown  for  all  those  whose  faces  light  up  like 
the  morning  when  they  see  Him  coming. 

So  God  values  that,  does  He?  I  am  glad 
that  He  is  so  human  that  I  can  understand 
Him.  I  am  thankful  that  He  is  so  like  unto 
us,  after  all,  that  we  can  really  picture  our 
heavenly  Father  recognizing  us  as  we  smile — 
is  glad  that  we  smile  when  He  comes. 

I  met  a  husband  not  long  since  who  said, 
"My  home  is  so  changed.  I  do  not  know  why, 
but  I  am  not  happy  there."  When  I  inquired 
into  that  husband's  feelings,  he  said:  "For 
some  reason  my  wife  never  smiles  when  I 
come  in."  Oh,  the  wretched  home  where  no 
loved  one  smiles  when  the  husband  or  father 
enters.  Oh,  yes,  it  is  putting  hell  in  the  place 
of  heaven.  It  is  placing  harshness,  hardness, 
stony-heartedness  in  the  place  of  loving  kind- 
ness. If  a  husband,  going  up  to  his  door  at 
night,  after  his  long,  weary  day  of  labour, 
knows  that  there  will  be  a  face  at  that  dopr 
which  will  smile  to  see  him  come,  he  will  be 
paid  for  all  his  sacrifice  and  his  labour.  He 

106 


UNUSED  POWERS 


may  never  say  anything.  Husbands  are  too 
reticent,  too  stony-hearted  in  appearance 
when  they  are  the  softest-hearted  in  fact,  so 
that  the  wife  may  never  know  how  her  smile 
influences  the  husband's  life.  The  parents 
may  never  know  how  their  smiles  have  in- 
fluenced their  children's  existence.  But  to 
feel  that  when  we  come  home  there  will  be  no 
smile  for  us,  to  have  them  claim  to  love  us  but 
to  seem  otherwise,  is  to  lose  the  most  precious 
things  in  human  experience.  Better  no  sup- 
per and  a  smiling  welcome  than  the  richest 
feast  and  to  sit  down  to  it  opposite  a  stolid 
countenance. 

The  apostle  Paul  goes  on  to  argue  in  this 
book  that  the  reason  why  Jesus  so  appreciates 
our  smile  when  we  meet  Him  is  because  it 
shows  that  we  appreciate  what  He  has  done 
for  us.  No  one  can  say  that  he  appreciates 
Christ  unless  he  has  studied  Him  enough  and 
meditated  enough  upon  His  existence  to  be  in 
a  condition  of  gladness  when  he  feels  that 
Christ  has  come.  Do  you  dread  to  hear  His 
steps?  Do  you  start  back  in  terror  at  the 
thought  that  He  might  come  in  the  clouds 
now?  Then  you  can  recognize  in  the  lesson 
that  the  Apostle  Paul  was  teaching,  that  you 
are  not  in  the  right  spirit,  that  you  are  not  in 

107 


UNUSED  POWERS 


His  service ;  you  are  not  where  you  can  be  and 
should  be,  if  you  would  dread  His  step,  and 
if  your  face  would  wear  an  expression  of 
terror  rather  than  a  smile. 

How  Christ  rebuked  the  disciples  on  the 
Sea  of  Galilee  when  they  saw  Him  walking 
upon  the  water,  and  when  they  arose  all  af- 
frighted, with  hands  raised,  eyes  and  mouth 
open,  and  terror  on  every  feature,  to  see  Him 
coming  across  the  water.  He,  shouting  to 
them,  said,  "Be  of  good  cheer;  smile;  cheer 
up ;  show  some  cheer  in  your  welcome ;  it  is  I ; 
be  not  afraid;  welcome  me  with  a  smile  and 
not  with  looks  of  terror." 

A  smile  shows  our  appreciation  of  what 
Christ  has  done  for  us.  Just  as  in  that  ma- 
chine shop  not  long  ago  I  stood  at  the  desk 
talking  to  the  proprietor,  and  the  pattern- 
maker came  up  and  laid  on  the  desk  in  front 
of  us  a  number  of  patterns  for  some  work 
they  were  doing.  After  the  conversation  with 
me  had  practically  finished  the  proprietor 
took  up  the  patterns,  looked  at  them,  turned 
around  and  gazed  at  the  pattern-maker  with 
a  smile,  which  lit  up  his  whole  face,  and  said, 
"Come  in  again  in  an  hour  or  so  and  I  will  see 
you  about  these."  His  smile  had  said  it  all. 
I  saw  the  pattern-maker  go  cheerfully  back, 

108 


UNUSED  POWERS 


and  I  heard  him  whistling  in  the  other  room 
a  few  minutes  later. 

If  we  smile  we  can  express  our  appreci- 
ation so  much  deeper  than  by  any  language. 
Hence  Jesus  said  that  not  every  one  who  says, 
"Lord,  Lord,"  shall  enter.  Will  you  really 
smile  with  a  sincere,  heart-giving  welcome 
when  He  comes?  If  you  do,  then  you  may 
be  assured  that  you  will  have  a  crown  of 
righteousness. 

General  Grant  said  that  the  only  way  he 
knew  whether  he  had  his  father's  approval  of 
what  he  did  or  not  was  when  his  father  smiled. 
General  Grant  himself  inherited  a  very  reti- 
cent disposition.  His  father  was  a  man  of 
very  few  words,  and  his  boy  only  knew  when 
he  approved  of  his  behaviour  by  the  smile  that 
came  to  his  father's  face.  General  Grant  said 
that  he  watched  for  that  smile  with  all  the 
eagerness  of  a  man  "watching  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  his  highest  ambition  where 
a  single  utterance  is  to  decide  weal  or  woe." 
And  so  a  child  watches  his  father's  smile  for 
the  appreciation  which  that  smile  shows. 

But  the  apostle  is  speaking,  in  his  dying 
moments,  of  greater  things,  of  God's  al- 
mighty love,  and  is  exhibiting  here  the 
thought  that  our  welcome  not  only  shows  our 

109 


UNUSED  POWERS 


appreciation  of  Christ,  but  our  great  love  for 
Him.  How  cruel  a  loving  heart  may  be  to 
hide  its  affection  under  a  clouded  brow.  How 
cruel  it  often  is  in  the  home,  where  the  chil- 
dren would  live  in  light  and  brightness  if  the 
mother  would  but  smile  upon  them. 

And  yet  there  is  danger  of  manufacturing 
a  smile,  and  that  is  the  worst  sham  on  the  face 
of  the  earth — to  put  on  one  that  is  entirely 
superficial  is  the  worst  possible  form  of 
hypocrisy,  and  is  consequently  one  of  the 
worst  kinds  of  profanity.  To  profane  a  thing 
so  sacred  as  a  smile  of  welcome  is  to  train 
one's  heart  into  the  most  vicious  ways.  It  is 
difficult  to  avoid  it  when  you  go  to  the  door 
to  meet  some  one  you  never  cared  to  see  and 
wished  would  not  put  his  footstep  over  your 
threshold ;  when  you  feel  that  you  are  obliged 
to  welcome  him  with  a  smile.  That  is  indeed 
a  trial;  yet  it  is  one  of  the  moral  questions 
that  it  seems  to  me  we  should  be  very  clear 
upon.  To  my  mind  one  of  the  last  things  that 
we  should  be  hypocritical  upon  is  a  smile  of 
welcome.  But  that  is  the  way  it  is — the  most 
holy  things,  the  most  valuable  things  are  of 
course  the  most  often  counterfeited,  and  to 
my  mind  the  false  smile  of  welcome  is  the 
most  hypocritical  thing  that  we  have  any 

110 


knowledge  of.  The  poet  has  said  that  "a  man 
may  smile  and  smile  and  be  a  villain  too" ;  and 
it  is  too  true.  Hence  the  welcome  smile,  the 
dawning  face  which  is  here  mentioned  by  the 
apostle,  means  one  that  rises  sincerely,  from 
the  very  depths  of  the  soul — a  smile  that  is  a 
real,  positive,  hearty,  spiritual  welcome  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Shall  we  smile  when  He  comes?  It  de- 
pends altogether  upon  whether  we  know 
Him,  and  the  thought  that  came  to  me,  and 
which  I  thought  might  be  helpful  to  you,  is, 
Would  you  know  Him  if  you  saw  Him? 

A  sick  little  girl — a  consumptive — at  whose 
bedside  I  had  often  prayed  and  sung,  told  me 
a  great  many  times  about  her  uncle  who  went 
to  Australia  from  England,  when  her  family 
came  to  America,  She  had  never  seen  her 
uncle,  but  she  felt  positive  she  would  know 
him  if  she  should  see  him,  from  what  she  had 
heard  her  mother  say  about  him,  and  from 
having  looked  at  his  photograph.  At  last 
her  uncle,  who  was  quite  wealthy,  did  come 
to  visit  that  family,  and  while  I  was  not  there 
at  the  time,  I  was  there  shortly  afterwards 
and  asked  the  little  sick  girl  if  she  knew  her 
uncle  when  he  came,  and  she  said,  "Of  course 
I  knew  him :  I  had  studied  so  much  about  him, 

111 


UNUSED  POWERS 


I  had  looked  at  his  photograph  so  often,  and 
read  so  much  about  him,  and  heard  mother 
speak  so  much  about  him  that  as  soon  as  he 
stepped  into  the  room  I  knew  he  was  Uncle 
John."  I  thought  of  that  uncle's  joy  when  he 
came  into  that  room  where  he  had  never  been 
before,  and  saw  a  person  who  had  never 
looked  upon  his  face  who  at  once  lovingly 
recognized  him  with  a  smile  of  welcome.  I 
thought  how  Christ,  in  His  higher,  diviner 
and  more  loving  attitude,  longs  to  come  into 
the  home  of  His  children  here  on  earth  and  be 
recognized  as  soon  as  He  comes,  because  we 
have  studied  Him  so  much,  because  we  have 
read  and  heard  so  much  about  Him.  I  feel 
the  terrific  responsibility  which  rests  upon  me 
as  a  teacher  of  the  people  in  this  pulpit,  that 
I  should  show  forth  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  all 
the  traits  of  His  beautiful  character,  exhibit- 
ing what  He  does  for  us,  how  He  appears, 
what  He  thinks,  and  what  He  represents, 
until  you  shall  know  Him.  Oh,  that  no  per- 
son who  has  heard  me  through  all  these  years 
shall  fail  to  know  Christ  when  He  comes. 
The  prayer  of  my  heart,  deep  and  strong,  is 
that  every  one  of  you  may  hear  enough  about 
Him  at  home,  so  that  when  He  comes  you  will 
know  Him  and  welcome  Him  with  a  smile. 

112 


UNUSED  POWERS 


I  saw  a  consumptive  father  waiting  for  his 
brother  to  come.  He  had  not  seen  his  brother 
for  many  years,  and  he  said  he  was  afraid  he 
would  not  know  him  when  he  came.  The  poor 
invalid's  time  was  growing  less  and  less,  and 
he  became  all  the  more  anxious  that  his 
brother  should  come  as  he  approached  nearer 
and  nearer  to  death.  He  asked  them  to  hurry 
and  bring  Harry  to  him  as  he  wanted  to  see 
him  once  more  before  he  died.  And  when  at 
last  Harry's  footstep  came  up  the  stairway 
the  sick  man  recognized  it,  and  he  said, 
"Harry  has  come;  Harry  has  come!"  He 
recognized  the  footstep.  There  was  some- 
thing spiritual  in  the  loving  recognition  of 
human  to  human,  but  how  much  more  spir- 
itual and  more  acute  it  may  be  between  the 
human  soul  and  its  Saviour. 

We  will  know  Him  when  He  comes.  If 
we  love  Him  we  must  so  picture  Him  that 
we  will  know  Him,  and  we  will  welcome  Him 
with  a  hearty  smile.  We  know  that  He  can- 
not bring  us  any  sorrow;  we  know  that  He 
cannot  bring  us  any  evil;  we  know  that 
He  cannot  bring  us  any  pain.  Oh,  no;  that 
most  loving  Person,  the  most  ideal,  divine, 
heavenly  Saviour  can  bring  us  no  pain.  He 
loves  us,  and  when  we  appreciate  Him  fully, 

113 


when  we  love  Him  sincerely  and  have  studied 
His  characteristics  carefully,  when  He  comes 
our  whole  being  will  light  up  with  a  morning 
smile. 

When  He  comes  He  holds  the  crown  of 
His  approval,  a  crown  of  salvation  and  ever- 
lasting life  for  every  one  who  has  studied 
Him  enough  to  know  Him  and  who  loves 
Him  enough  to  smile  a  welcome  when  He 
comes. 


VIII 
OUTSIDE  AND  INSIDE 

I  DESIRE  to  direct  your  thoughts  to  the 
first   verse   of   the   eleventh    chapter   of 
John:   "Now   a  certain  man  was   sick, 
named   Lazarus,   of   Bethany,   the  town  of 
Mary  and  her  sister  Martha."    The  words  I 
wish  to  call  your  attention  to  are:  "The  town 
of  Mary  and  her  sister  Martha."    Lazarus' 
sister  sent  unto  Jesus  saying:  "Lord,  behold, 
he  whom  Thou  lovest  is  sick." 

Many  years  ago  I  was  sent  across  the 
Arabian  Desert  by  way  of  Mt.  Sinai  to  Bag- 
dad. The  stately  old  sheik,  who  was  at  the 
head  of  his  tribe,  who  guided  the  party  and 
who  commanded  its  military  guard,  was  a 
man  of  unusual  ability.  In  stature  he  was 
high  and  strong,  and  an  ideal  athlete.  He 
was  made  sheik  of  his  tribe  because  of  his 
superior  intelligence,  his  great  physical  force, 
his  unusual  ability  in  managing  the  fiery 
steeds  of  the  Arabs,  and  the  love  for  him 
which  all  the  camels  of  the  caravan  expressed. 


UNUSED  POWERS 


He  was  elected  without  a  formal  vote  by  the 
love  and  obedience  of  the  animals  and  the  re- 
spect of  his  f  ellowmen.  All  obeyed  him  with- 
out question.  We  first  met  him  at  the  old 
city  of  Edom,  wherein  great  cliffs  were  carved 
into  palaces  ages  and  ages  ago.  He  was  a 
very  rough,  and  fierce-looking  specimen  of 
the  Arab  tribe;  his  clothing  was  very  much 
soiled,  his  long  beard  was  filled  with  the  dust 
of  the  desert,  his  face  besmirched,  and  his  hair 
disheveled  where  we  could  see  it  under  his  old 
turban  that  had  been  pulled  on  one  side,  the 
tassel  of  which  was  gone.  He  looked  so  wild 
that  one  would  have  taken  him  to  be  a  robber. 
All  the  way  across  the  desert  he  com- 
manded obedience  with  dignity  and  with  a 
self-assertion  of  strength  that  made  a  person 
feel  that  he  would  shoot  him  on  sight.  When 
we  crossed  a  stagnant  pool  he  would  dash  on 
his  black  steed  into  the  mud,  and  send  it 
flying  on  every  side,  and  come  out  himself 
dripping  with  mud.  He  said  that  was  his 
protection  against  disease,  a  kind  of  mud 
bath.  He  was  a  filthy  specimen  to  look  at  as 
he  came  riding  by  us  from  time  to  time,  but 
we  learned  to  respect  his  wisdom,  and  to  feel 
something  of  his  attractive  magnetism.  His 
management  of  the  camp  was  so  perfect,  and 


UNUSED  POWERS 


his  command  of  the  military  under  his  charge 
was  so  complete,  that  we  could  do  nothing  but 
respect  him.  One  day  he  handed  me  a  book 
and  advised  me  to  read  it  whenever  we  were 
in  camp  after  meals,  as  it  was  translated  from 
the  Arabic  by  some  of  his  relatives  and 
printed  in  English.  I  was  surprised  to  find 
what  a  valuable  book  it  was  and  how  delight- 
fully it  had  been  written.  I  returned  the 
book  to  him  with  added  respect,  and  he  asked 
me  to  come  and  see  him  at  his  home  in  Bag- 
dad. When  he  gave  me  his  card  printed  in 
Arabic  telling  me  the  street  and  number,  I 
dared  do  nothing  else  but  promise  I  would 
call.  Yet,  I  concluded  it  would  be  a  very 
wretched  experience. 

After  we  had  been  in  Bagdad  several  days 
the  old  sheik  sent  around  and  asked  me  to 
keep  my  promise  to  come  and  visit  him,  for 
they  think  a  great  deal  of  being  visited  in 
Bagdad.  I  went  around  to  a  narrow  street 
with  high,  bare  walls,  with  nothing  on  the 
exterior  indicating  what  was  within.  When 
I  reached  the  great  wooden  gate  that  led  into 
the  inner  court,  I  rapped  upon  the  door. 
Soon  two  servants  opened  the  door  slowly 
and  asked  me  my  name,  and,  taking  my  card, 
i  an  away.  They  returned  and  pulled  wide 

117 


UNUSED  POWERS 


open  these  doors,  and,  never  in  the  panoramic 
changes  of  any  exhibit  of  life,  did  I  ever  see 
anything  to  equal  the  transfer  from  the  out- 
side to  the  inside  of  that  court  yard.  There 
were  three  fountains  flashing  in  their  beauty ; 
there  were  flowers  of  all  colours  and  in  all 
stages  of  development ;  there  was  green  sward 
around  the  fountains,  and  statuary  from 
Greece  and  Rome.  I  felt  as  though  trans- 
ferred instantly  from  a  dirty  street  to  a  place 
in  paradise  itself,  and  when  the  sheik  came 
out  to  meet  me  in  perfectly  pure  white  attire, 
his  hair  so  nicely  arranged,  his  beard  so  care- 
fully combed,  his  face  and  hands  so  clean,  and 
his  slippers  so  new,  eveiything  about  him 
looking  so  fresh  and  bright,  it  took  me  a 
moment  to  realize  that  it  could  be  the  same 
man  I  had  seen  in  the  dirt  and  filth  through 
the  long  weeks  of  travel  across  the  desert. 
He  introduced  me  to  his  wife  (an  unusual 
thing  to  do  there)  and  to  his  children.  He 
had  five  or  six,  bright-faced  and  intelligent, 
who  brought  me  the  trays  on  which  he  served 
the  most  delicious  food.  Along  in  the  even- 
ing he  brought  in  musicians  who  played  with 
a  rich  sweetness.  They  played  the  American 
tunes  which  he  had  required  them  to  learn 
because  an  American  was  coming.  After 

118 


UNUSED  POWERS 


the  "Star-Spangled  Banner"  they  played 
"Home,  Sweet  Home,"  and  my  soul  felt  so, 
so  far  from  home.  I  was  thousands  of  miles 
distant,  and  no  person  of  my  relation  knew 
just  where  I  was.  If  I  should  die  there  no 
one  in  America  might  ever  know  it.  As  they 
played,  "Home,  Sweet  Home,"  how  my  heart 
sank  and  melted  under  it,  the  tears  came,  and 
he  seeing  my  tears  asked  them  to  cease  and 
turn  to  an  Arabian  tune. 

The  transition  from  the  dirt  and  filth  of 
that  outward  life  in  the  travel  across  the 
desert,  to  the  beauty  in  that  home,  to  the  holi- 
ness and  sacredness  of  that  domestic  circle,  to 
the  sparkling  fountains  of  pure  water,  the 
flowers,  and  the  skies  overhead  which  could 
be  seen  from  that  courtyard,  was  no  greater 
than  the  transition  from  the  outer  world  in 
Palestine  to  that  home  where  Christ  led  His 
disciples.  How  great  was  the  transition  from 
the  dusty  street  of  Bethany,  from  the  humble 
village,  into  the  courtyard  of  the  home  of 
Mary,  and  Martha,  and  Lazarus,  "whom 
Jesus  loved." 

I  have  sat  upon  the  stones  of  the  ruins  of 
the  old  house  where  Mary  and  Martha  lived 
in  Bethany  and  gazed  upon  the  few  pieces  of 
beautiful  marble,  so  broken,  yet  revealing 

119 


UNUSED  POWERS 


such  delicate  carvings,  and  tried  to  imagine 
the  courtyard  of  that  home  in  Bethany.  I 
have  tried  to  make  an  imaginary  picture  of 
that  pavement  so  wrought  out  in  wonderful 
mosaics,  those  carved  pillars,  those  wonderful 
Eastern  arches,  the  open  court  to  the  sky,  the 
flowers,  and  the  furniture  of  the  home  that 
Jesus  loved  in  Bethany.  I  think  of  the  tran- 
sition of  the  disciples  and  Jews  from  the 
dusty  street  as  they  entered  the  vestibule  and 
found  servants  to  wash  their  feet,  to  give 
them  new  and  clean  attire,  and  to  think  how 
they  sat  upon  the  couches  at  that  table  where 
Lazarus  himself  was  present.  I  think  of  the 
great  difference  between  the  outer  world  and 
the  inner  world;  between  the  place  where 
Mary  and  Martha  actually  lived  and  the 
places  where  they  were  usually  seen  by  the 
world.  I  think  of  their  mother's  grave,  to 
which  they  must  have  gone  with  a  daughter's 
allegiance  and  love,  and  of  the  surroundings 
of  that  family  within  as  they  cared  for  their 
dear  old  father,  afflicted  so  long  with  the  lep- 
rosy until  Jesus  came  to  heal  him.  All  the 
domestic  arrangements  of  the  house  pass  be- 
fore the  mind  as  one  sits  there  and  looks  upon 
the  ruins  that  are  left  of  the  old  house. 

As  one  steps  down  the  street  a  short  dis- 

120 


tance  to  the  tomb  of  Lazarus,  and  goes  into 
that  tomb,  winding  down  its  stairway  to  the 
dark  depths  where  the  body  of  Lazarus  lay, 
and  feels  its  chill  and  dampness,  and  then 
cometh  forth  again  into  the  sunlight  and  goes 
back  to  that  home,  the  transition  from  the 
tomb  to  the  home  enforces  the  great  lesson 
that  Jesus  seemed  to  be  impressing  by  His 
wonderful  example.  The  home  at  Bethany 
where  they  lived  their  inner  life,  their  holiest 
life,  was  so  different  from  its  exterior  that  it 
furnishes  a  wide  contrast,  consequently  a 
magnificent  illustration  of  this  thought. 

When  I  worked  in  the  slums  of  Boston  in 
connection  with  a  temperance  society,  I  used 
to  meet  there  frequently  a  very  rough  speci- 
men of  a  boy,  some  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age, 
and  he  often  showed  me  about  in  the  night, 
as  he  knew  the  names  of  the  people  who  lived 
in  those  cellars,  attics,  backyards,  and  on  the 
roofs.  He  was  a  very  intelligent  boy,  by  the 
name  of  Jack.  One  night  I  asked  him  where 
his  home  was,  and  he  replied,  "Oh,  my  home 
is  anywhere  I  can  find  a  place  to  eat  and 
sleep."  I  said  to  him:  "Don't  you  have  any 
one  particular  place  that  you  like  better  than 
any  other?"  "Well,"  he  answered,  "my 
'sleeping  hole'  is  probably  the  best  of  any 

121 


place  there  is,  but  I  would  not  like  to  show 
you  that."  I  said,  "Now  Jack,  that  is  just 
the  place  we  want  to  see.  You  have  shown  us 
eveiything  else."  The  policeman  said  he  was 
a  trustworthy  boy,  and  I  finally  persuaded 
him.  He  took  me  through  a  series  of  by- 
ways— that  Boston  only  can  support,  which 
go  everywhere  and  nowhere — into  a  very  dark 
alley  that  led  back  into  a  place  so  narrow  that 
two  people  could  scarcely  pass.  Then  he 
showed  me  a  pile  of  rubbish  that  had  been 
deposited  there  by  poor  people,  and  which 
the  thoughtless  city  government  had  never 
removed,  consisting  of  barrels,  baskets,  straw, 
and  all  kinds  of  rubbish  which  had  accumu- 
lated in  the  end  of  that  narrow  alley.  There 
he  had  taken  a  barrel  with  both  ends  out, 
placed  it  under  a  lot  of  this  rubbish,  and  cov- 
ered it  with  straw  and  various  pieces  of  old 
carpets  and  things  that  had  been  thrown  out ; 
and  that  he  said  was  his  "  sleeping  hole." 

When  the  policeman  with  his  dark  lantern 
let  the  light  into  that  "sleeping  hole"  it  was  a 
wretched  looking  place.  I  asked  Jack  how  he 
could  sleep  there,  and  he  got  down  on  the 
ground  on  all  fours,  slid  feet  first  back  into 
the  barrel  until  it  covered  all  but  his  head, 
took  a  piece  of  carpet  that  was  over  the  top 

122 


UNUSED  POWERS 


and  let  it  down  in  front,  and  then  put  his 
arms  on  the  pavement  and  said  that  was  his 
pillow.  "This  is  my  'sleeping  hole'  and  I 
sleep  very  well."  That  boy's  life  was  brighter 
outside  than  inside.  To  go  inside  of  that 
"sleeping  hole"  with  all  the  filth  and  stench 
and  sleep  was  a  dreadful  thing  to  do,  and 
when  we  saw  the  inside  of  Jack's  life,  when 
we  saw  his  most  domestic  spot,  we  found  it 
was  a  place  more  dreadful  than  the  exterior. 
It  was  far  better  for  him  in  his  dirt  and  rags 
to  pick  a  little  food  from  the  old  boxes  and 
out  of  the  ash  barrels  along  the  sidewalk  than 
to  be  in  his  "sleeping  hole."  Yet  how  many 
thousands  are  in  their  "sleeping  holes?"  In 
our  own  city,  for  that  matter,  when  we  get 
into  the  inner  part  of  their  lives  we  find  that 
which  should  be  the  most  sacred  is  really  the 
most  filthy. 

In  Paris  I  went  once  to  visit  the  keeper  of 
the  morgue,  who  lived  next  door  to  it.  We 
found  that  a  door  opened  into  the  morgue, 
and  that  the  keeper  in  order  to  be  sure  that 
all  things  were  in  place,  slept  with  his  door 
half-open  into  the  place  where  lay  the  bodies 
of  the  dead — those  who  had  been  drowned  in 
the  Seine,  who  had  been  assassinated,  those 
who  had  been  poisoned,  and  those  who  had 

123 


UNUSED  POWERS 


committed  suicide.  Rows  of  them  were 
placed  there  before  the  glass  cases  that  in  the 
day-time  the  procession  of  people  might  go  by 
and  recognize  any  relative  or  friend  there. 
The  keeper  took  us  through  his  door  into  the 
morgue  room  itself  and  led  us  from  body  to 
body  that  we  might  look  on  the  different  faces 
in  that  awful  scene.  We  said  to  him:  "Do 
you  really  live  there?"  "Yes,"  he  replied,  "I 
have  lived  here  for  many  years."  "It  is  a 
dreadful  thing,"  we  said,  "to  live  here." 
Said  he,  "I  have  got  so  used  to  it  that  I  sleep 
through  the  night  just  as  regularly  as  I  would 
anywhere  else."  He  really  slept  with  dead 
bodies  so  near  him,  and  this  also  illustrates 
how  dreadful  may  be,  after  all,  the  inner  home 
of  a  man's  experience.  His  home  itself  may 
be  a  morgue. 

The  movement  in  favour  of  a  clean  home  is 
one  of  the  very  best  of  this  age,  for  the  social 
uplift  of  humanity.  The  necessity  of  a  better 
home,  of  having  one  place  of  all  others  that 
is  out  of  the  world,  out  of  the  different  move- 
ments of  society,  in  which  a  person  can  dwell 
in  cleanliness,  in  peace,  in  honesty,  is  ap- 
parent. Jesus  answered  the  question  with, 
"Come  and  see,"  when  the  visitor  said: 
"Where  dwellest  thou?" 

124 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Let  me  ask  that  question:  "Where  dost 
thou  dwell?"  and  then  imagine  what  must 
have  been  the  domestic  surroundings  of  His 
Dwelling  Place.  It  seems  to  have  been  such 
a  sacred  matter  that  the  Scriptures  did  not 
even  describe  His  home,  though  they  do  tell 
us  about  the  homes  He  blessed  and  the  homes 
He  visited.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  holy  of 
holies  into  which  even  the  apostles  did  not 
venture.  What  a  scene  presents  itself  to  the 
imagination  of  any  man  who  loves  Jesus,  and 
who  tries  to  picture  His  home  in  Capernaum 
of  Galilee,  and  in  Nazareth. 

We  are  trying  in  these  days  to  remove  the 
boys  and  girls  from  the  jails  and  prisons 
where  they  are  associated  with  older  crimin- 
als, and  get  them  into  better  environment. 
Boys  will  be  sent  to  jail,  having  committed 
some  one  offense,  and  being  there  thrown  all 
together,  into  acquaintance  with  the  worst 
criminals  of  twenty  or  twenty-five  years'  ex- 
perience, they  come  out  of  it,  degraded,  dis- 
graced, and  hopeless  for  reform,  because  they 
have  lived  in  jail,  and  that  has  been  their 
home  during  the  time  of  their  sentence.  A 
young  man  told  me  once  that  he  had  left  the 
hospital  in  which  he  had  been  studying  be- 
cause it  had  such  an  influence  upon  his  mind, 

125 


UNUSED  POWERS 


He  said  there  are  so  many  people  get  into  the 
hospitals  because  they  are  criminals  or  be- 
cause they  have  done  wrong,  and  there  is  such 
an  atmosphere  of  evil  connected  with  so  many 
people  in  the  public  hospitals  that  he  could 
not  any  longer  stand  its  influence  upon  him. 
He  said  it  was  making  him  feel  that  all  the 
world  was  bad,  and  that  there  were  no  sacred 
things ;  but  that  disease,  sin,  and  wrong  were 
prevalent  everywhere,  with  every  one.  I  can 
see  the  selfishness  of  his  thought,  and  believe 
if  he  lived  nearer  to  God  he  could  have  over- 
come it  all,  but  it  illustrates  well  the  influence 
environment  may  have  upon  us. 

The  thought  that  Jesus  is  continually 
pressing  on  us  and  which  we  wish  to  get  from 
His  table  this  morning,  is  that  the  environ- 
ment also  of  our  soul's  home  is  an  important 
matter  for  us  to  consider  and  protect.  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  when  he  was  first  married, 
moved  into  a  little  cottage  in  a  small  village 
of  Lasswade,  only  six  or  seven  miles  from 
Edinburgh.  Two  little  willow  trees  grew 
near  the  front  of  that  cottage,  and  he  and  his 
wife  tied  the  tops  together  to  get  an  artistic 
arch  with  a  little  wooden  cross,  and  thought 
that  was  a  superior  ornament.  Afterwards 
when  his  love  for  flowers  and  the  fields  grew, 

126 


UNUSED  POWERS 


and  when  his  name  became  a  household  word 
through  the  writing  of  his  books,  he  decided 
to  build  a  great  palace  at  Abbottsford  like 
unto  a  king's,  to  equal  Holyrood  itself,  and 
securing  the  money  by  mortgaging  almost 
everything  he  owned,  and  running  wildly  into 
debt,  he  built  Abbottsford,  that  wonderful 
palace  so  connected  with  the  scenes  and  stor- 
ies of  the  greatest  of  Scottish  localities. 
There  is  no  place  that  is  so  interesting  to  me, 
and  I  wish  I  could  speak  longer  about  it. 

While  he  was  in  Abbottsford  writing  the 
"Waverly  Novels"  at  his  desk  in  those  mag- 
nificent apartments,  filled  with  a  costly  col- 
lection of  the  antiques,  enjoying  honour  on 
honour,  he  said  he  did  not  live  there.  When 
they  asked  him  about  his  grand  home,  and 
said:  "What  a  great  thing  it  must  be  to  live 
in  a  palace  like  this,  decorated  with  every 
kind  of  art,"  he  replied:  "I  do  not  live  here." 
When  they  asked  him  where  he  did  live,  he 
said:  "Up  at  Lasswade."  Years  had  gone 
but  he  still  lived  in  the  old  cottage,  and  amid 
all  these  magnificent  surroundings  his  mind 
and  heart  were  up  there  at  Lasswade,  that 
dear,  little  home  which  was  really  his  only 
home  in  heart  and  remained  so  until  the  last. 

You  remember  when  Miss  Helen  Hunt 

127 


UNUSED  POWERS 


wrote  "Romona,"  how  she  described  the  little 
home  which  the  Indian  and  his  wife  made  in 
the  valley;  their  arrangements  for  their  do- 
mestic household ;  and  how  to  them  ever  after 
it  remained  their  real  home,  their  soul's  home. 
So  Jesus  is  saying  to  us,  "Your  soul's  home 
is  of  the  very  first  importance.  It  does  not 
matter  how  much  into  the  dust  and  dirt  you 
may  go  in  the  travels  of  life,  your  domestic, 
heart's,  soul's  home  is  the  chief  thing."  In 
what  kind  of  an  inner  home  do  you  live? 
What  kind  of  a  palace  is  that  which  our  souls 
occupy?  Today  this  is  the  serious  question 
of  life;  for  we  are,  especially  now,  what  we 
are  thinking  about.  We  are  what  we  imag- 
ine. We  live,  not  in  the  house  that  covers  us 
from  the  rain,  but  in  the  house  of  the  soul,  the 
house  made  by  ourselves  with  the  help  of  God 
Himself.  Every  soul  has  a  home.  It  may  be 
a  "sleeping  hole"  into  which  we  go  when  we 
retire  from  the  public,  it  may  be  a  degraded 
cave  filled  with  vermin,  and  snakes,  and  all 
forms  of  things  that  chill  with  horror.  But  a 
Christian's  home  is  the  soul-home  that  he  with 
the  help  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Himself  makes. 

You  cannot  tell  as  you  look  at  his  smiling 
face,  at  his  neat  attire,  or  by  the  company  he 
keeps,  what  kind  of  a  real  home  a  man  lives 

128 


in,  what  sort  of  a  soul's  home  his  is.  The  im- 
portant thing  is  to  have  a  soul's  home,  a  home 
of  the  heart  into  which  we  can  retire,  where 
all  things  are  clean,  where  everything  is  pure, 
where  it  is  open  to  the  sky,  and  into  which  no 
man  from  the  exterior  can  ever  intrude  with- 
out permission.  Have  a  soul's  inner  dwelling 
decorated  with  everything  that  is  glorious, 
with  every  beautiful  spiritual  comfort  that  is 
heavenly,  a  home  into  which  the  angels  of  God 
can  come,  a  home  into  which  Jesus  will  gladly 
come ;  so  clean,  so  pure  that  He  will  come  and 
sup  with  you.  It  is  not  so  important  what 
homes  our  bodies  have,  though  that  is  in  itself 
worth  attention;  but  the  highest,  the  greatest 
thing  is  to  have  a  soul's  clean  home  of  your 
own.  Don't  live  in  a  morgue;  don't  live  in 
the  dirty  street;  don't  live  amid  the  serpents 
of  a  cave,  but  have  a  home  to  which  Jesus  will 
assist  you  whenever  you  ask  Him,  into  which 
you  can  retire,  where  the  sunshine  beams  in 
glory,  where  the  flowers  bloom  in  beauty, 
\\here  fountains  flash  around  you  with  their 
suggestions  of  musical  peace,  and  where 
your  associations  are  all  pure  as  the  angels 
of  God ;  a  place  into  which  Jesus  can  always 
be  welcomed! 


129 


IX 
THE  OPEN  DOOR 

IN  the  tenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians 
the  thirteenth  verse  reads  thus:  "There 
hath  no  temptation  taken  you,  but  such  as 
is  common  to  man:  but  God  is  faithful,  who 
will  not  suffer  you  to  be  tempted  above  that 
ye  are  able  to  bear ;  but  will  with  the  tempta- 
tion also  make  a  way  to  escape,  that  ye  may 
be  able  to  bear  it." 

Only  one  single  thought  out  of  this  won- 
derful collection  of  suggestions,  shall  I  bring 
to  your  attention.  God  makes  a  way  of  es- 
cape ;  so  that  when  we  are  tempted  or  tried  in 
any  manner,  the  Lord  always  finds  some 
ether  way  in  which  to  reward  or  answer  us. 

A  very  simple,  but  a  very  impressive  illus- 
tration has  come  down  through  the  years 
from  my  childhood  and  appeared  to  me 
recently.  I  recall  going  home  late  at  night, 
or  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning,  from  a 
neighbour's,  where  as  a  boy  I  had  gone  on  an 
evening's  visit.  The  farm  was  over  the  moun- 

130 


UNUSED  POWERS 


tainside  in  the  Berkshires.  I  managed  to 
force  a  passage  through  the  deep  drifts  of 
snow  on  top  of  the  mountain  where  the  high- 
way was  overfilled  with  snow.  I  was  obliged 
to  take  a  detour  through  the  pasture  in  order 
to  reach  home.  And  when  I  looked  for  my 
mother's  light  in  the  window,  it  was  not  there. 
It  had  never  failed  me  in  all  my  childhood 
before.  Our  cottage  was  across  the  valley 
and  I  had  to  walk  far  to  reach  it  by  the  road- 
way. The  light  had  always  been  left  there 
when  father  and  mother  went  to  bed. 

But  that  night  it  was  not  there.  I  won- 
dered what  could  have  happened,  as  I  man- 
aged with  difficulty,  to  get  through  the  drifts, 
climbing  the  fences,  and  wading  through  the 
banks  of  snow  in  the  fields.  When  I  came  up 
to  the  front  of  the  house  where  the  light  had 
always  been  I  beat  my  way  over  to  the  usual 
door,  which  led  into  the  kitchen,  and  I  rapped 
upon  the  door.  There  was  no  light  inside  and 
there  was  no  indication  of  a  light  anywhere. 
All  was  silent;  the  wind  whistled,  and  the 
snow  cut  my  face  as  it  drifted  from  the  north- 
east. I  rapped  again,  and  then  three  times  I 
whistled  through  my  fingers;  and  then  I 
heard  the  window  overhead  being  raised  and 
the  voice  of  my  father  overhead  saying,  "Son, 

131 


UNUSED  POWERS 


go  around  to  the  side  door!"  Then  I  turned 
indignantly  and  went  around  the  house  to  the 
side  door,  and  when  I  turned  the  corner,  there 
was  my  mother's  light  in  that  window.  When 
I  approached  the  light,  I  found  that  the  door 
had  been  left  to  be  easily  unlatched,  so  that  I 
could  easily  open  it. 

When  I  entered  the  room  I  found  the  log 
burning  cheerfully  in  the  old  fireplace  and 
mother's  cakes  were  set  out  there  on  the  cen- 
tre table.  But  I  was  too  angry  that  they  did 
not  admit  me  the  usual  way  and  I  did  not  eat 
the  cakes.  I  went  to  the  bedroom  feeling 
angry,  and  when  I  arose  in  the  morning  I 
must  have  shown  a  sour  face.  I  muttered 
that  "my  mother  had  no  right  to  put  the  light 
on  that  side  of  the  house;  she  "had  no  business 
to  order  me  to  go  around  to  the  side  door!" 
When  I  went  out  to  milk  the  cows  my  father 
came  to  me  and  putting  his  hand  on  my  shoul- 
der, said:  "Your  mother  put  that  light  in  the 
window  because  she  loved  you;  and  because 
she  wanted  you  to  take  the  path  that  was 
clearest  and  safest  for  you!  If  you  had 
sought  for  the  light,  you  would  have  come  the 
easiest  road.  Your  mother  has  always  been 
patient  with  you,  and  she  wanted  to  open  the 
door  for  you  that  it  was  best  for  you  to  take ; 

132 


UNUSED  POWERS 


and  she  put  the  light  where  you  could  see  it 
when  you  looked  for  it."  I  do  not  think  I 
have  ever  recovered  from  shame  of  my  in- 
gratitude. But  many  years  have  gone  by, 
and  her  face  comes  back  to  me  again,  and  I 
think  how  her  mother  love  shut  that  front 
door,  locked  it  tight ;  but  she  opened  another 
door,  and  she  put  the  light  where  I  could  see 
it,  if  I  had  only  opened  my  eyes  and  trusted 
her  to  prepare  for  such  a  helpful  change. 

We  are  studying  continually  on  prayer  and 
on  the  power  of  prayer  with  God,  and  we  are 
so  slow  to  learn  the  great  important  truth 
that  when  God  shuts  one  door,  he  always 
opens  another.  When  in  His  great  love  He 
sees  it  best  for  us  not  to  receive  a  direct 
answer  to  our  petitions,  He  then,  still  respect- 
ing our  prayers,  will  not  force  us  into  obedi- 
ence to  Him;  but  drawing  us  with  those 
chords  of  love,  He  opens  another  place;  He 
shows  us  another  way  if  we  will  but  look  for 
it.  But  many  of  us  think  God  does  not 
answer  our  prayers,  because  we  insist  on  stay- 
ing at  that  same  front  door  and  looking  for 
the  light  at  one  window  only. 

I  recall  another  incident — that  of  a  neigh- 
bour— that  illustrates  my  thought.  He 
owned  a  dog  that  we  all  loved.  It  was  very 

133 


UNUSED  POWERS 


faithful  to  us  all,  and  had  great  knowledge. 
It  was  especially  loved  by  its  little  master 
who  lived  in  the  home,  but  was  an  orphan. 
There  was  one  door  which  was  always  used  to 
admit  that  dog  to  the  house.  A  storm  came 
late  in  the  year,  when  the  snows  drifted  high 
on  the  mountain  side  and  piled  up  as  high  as 
the  roofs  of  the  houses.  The  dog  dug  out  his 
path  to  the  usual  door  and  the  door  was 
shut.  The  dog  must  have  whined  and  howled 
through  the  weary  hours  of  the  night  and 
way  into  the  morning.  But  when  morning 
came,  they  saw  his  frozen  body  there,  laying 
in  the  snow,  with  his  paws  on  the  threshold  of 
the  usual  door  by  which  he  usually  entered. 
Yet  his  master  had  taken  great  pains  to  ar- 
range it  so  that  he  could  come  around  and 
enter  another  door.  When  that  dog  found 
that  door  was  shut,  he  could  have  gone  in  by 
that  other  door  and  have  been  well  sheltered. 
But  because  of  the  dog's  insistence  on  stay- 
ing at  that  one  door,  because  of  his  lack  of 
knowledge,  or  lack  of  faith  of  his  master,  he 
stayed  there  until  he  was  frozen  to  death. 

There  are  many  Christians  whose  faith  has 
been  frozen  because  they  found  one  door  shut 
and  concluded  that  was  the  only  way  to  enter. 
They  happened  to  go  the  usual  way,  and  f  or- 

134 


UNUSED  POWERS 


got  that  God  in  His  great  wisdom  will  never 
leave  us  alone.  My  father  said,  "Your 
mother  put  that  light  in  the  window  because 
she  loved  you;  she  would  not  fail  you,  and 
she  would  not  fail  to  open  the  door  which  is 
best  for  you" !  And  so  it  is  with  our  Heav- 
enly Father.  Our  Heavenly  Father  opens 
the  door  that  is  best  for  us;  and  he  who,  be- 
cause he  does  not  get  the  exact  answer  in 
one  way,  stands  outside  the  door  and  freezes 
to  death,  seems  to  have  only  knowledge  of 
animals. 

Here  is  a  beautiful  story  told  by  one  of  our 
poets — I  wish  I  could  recall  who  it  was  that 
wrote  it.  It  is  something  like  this:  In  the 
early  part  of  the  war,  before  Russia  came  into 
it,  there  were  a  number  of  men  in  prison  in 
Siberia  and  they  were  very  carefully  guarded. 
One  night,  according  to  the  story,  a  conspir- 
acy had  been  arranged  among  the  prisoners 
confined  there  because  of  political  offences 
and  they  assembled  together  and  decided  that 
cne  of  their  number  should  go  up  and  in  some 
way  capture  or  kill  the  guard,  then  open  the 
gate  and  so  enable  all  to  make  one  general 
rush  for  that  open  gate.  According  to  the 
poet's  account,  one  of  the  bravest  men  went 
and  captured  the  sentinel,  and  swung  open 

135 


wide  the  door.  When  he  opened  the  gate, 
there  was  a  general  movement,  all  rushing  f  or 
liberty.  But  as  they  were  rushing  toward  the 
open  door  together,  a  strong  breeze  of  wind 
sprang  up  and  shut  the  door  through  which 
they  were  about  to  escape.  They  were  unable 
to  open  it  again.  The  door  was  shut ! 

But  some  wise  man  among  the  number  said, 
"I  feel  a  breeze  from  the  west;  the  breeze 
which  shut  that  door  is  blowing  this  way,  and 
it  could  not  enter  the  prison  unless  it  had 
blown  open  some  other  door."  So,  feeling 
their  way,  by  the  draft  of  air,  they  found  that 
the  wind  which  had  shut  one  door  had  blown 
open  first  another  door,  which  opened  out  on 
the  parade  grounds,  giving  them  the  liberty 
they  were  seeking.  The  other  door,  which 
had  been  shut  before  their  face,  was  a  very 
dangerous  exit  and  might  have  cost  them  their 
lives  even  if  they  had  succeeded  in  getting  out 
at  all.  The  same  breeze  that  shut  one  door 
opened  a  safer  door  and  gave  them  their  lib- 
erty. God  often  sends  breezes  to  His  follow- 
ers, and  the  same  winds  that  shut  the  door  in 
the  face  of  him  who  would  escape  that  way — 
opens  another  door  which  furnishes  a  far  bet- 
ter method  of  getting  one's  liberty. 

This  is  a  wonderful  saying.of  the  Apostles', 

130 


in  which  he  says  that  God  will  "find  a  way  of 
escape";  that  he  will  find  some  other  method. 

I  remember  having  a  talk  with  Spurgeon, 
in  which  he  said  he  had  often  wondered  at  the 
providence  of  God,  inasmuch  as  that  ship  on 
which  he  intended  to  sail  away  to  Australia 
left  the  wharf  a  day  ahead  of  schedule  time; 
and  when  he  arrived  at  the  pier,  the  boat  had 
sailed  the  day  before,  leaving  him  in  London. 
He  said  that  he  often  wondered  whether  it 
was  God's  own  hand  that  dealt  with  him, 
keeping  him  in  London  to  preach  the  Gospel, 
and  to  do  the  work  he  did  at  the  Tabernacle. 
God  shut  one  door,  and  yet  He  opened  a 
greater  one  to  him. 

I  do  not  think  we  go  to  a  point  of  extrava- 
gance in  saying  that  when  we  have  prayed 
for  something  that  is  reasonable  for  us  to 
obtain,  and  it  is  denied  us,  it  is  absolutely  sure 
that  the  better  thing  is  within  our  reach,  if  we 
will  only  look  around  to  find  it. 

Abraham  Lincoln  said  that  when  he  was 
defeated  for  the  United  States  Senate  he  was 
utterly  broken;  that  he  went  home  feeling 
that  republics  were  ungrateful;  that  the  peo- 
ple were  unwise  who  put  any  trust  in  any 
republic  whatever.  He  was  altogether  dis- 
couraged. He  had  been  defeated  after  a  very 

137 


UNUSED  POWERS 


long  campaign.  It  was  an  awful  defeat,  a 
door  slammed  in  his  face,  by  the  providence 
of  God.  But  the  shutting  of  that  door  to  the 
Senate  unquestionably  brought  him  to  the 
presidency  of  the  United  States  and  made 
him  the  great  martyr  for  human  freedom. 

I  recall  an  ascent  of  the  Alps  made  with 
some  friends  of  mine  some  years  ago.  I 
walked  on  in  advance  up  the  side  of  Mount 
Blanc,  and  left  them  far  behind.  I  felt  that 
I  must  wait  at  every  cross  road  to  tell  them 
which  way  they  must  go,  as  they  were  trust- 
ing on  me  as  their  guide.  But  at  every  cross 
road  I  came  to  I  cut  off  limbs  of  trees  and 
placed  them  across  the  road  which  they  were 
not  to  enter,  so  that  they  might  not  make  any 
mistake.  I  had  not  told  them  anything  about 
it,  but  they  very  easily  recognized  the  hint 
that  the  tree  limbs  across  the  paths  meant 
that  they  were  not  to  go  that  way,  and  they 
soon  overtook  me.  They  could  not  make  any 
mistake  because  I  had  put  something  there  to 
show  them  which  way  to  go. 

So  the  Saviour,  in  guiding  us  through  life, 
puts  along  the  path  He  intends  us  to  take, 
something  at  each  cross  road  showing  that  we 
are  not  to  go  that  way. 

It  is  the  history  of  prayer  in  this  congrega- 

138 


UNUSED  POWERS 


tion,  and  it  is  the  history  of  prayer  every- 
where, that  we  are  sometimes  helpfully  de- 
nied. A  most  remarkable  example  of  this 
once  came  to  my  attention  in  connection  with 
the  after-services.  A  lady  asked  the  prayers 
of  my  congregation  that  her  nephew  might 
be  reconciled  to  her.  The  nephew  had  left  her 
in  anger  and  had  said  he  would  never  return, 
and  she  had  felt  that  he  never  would ;  and  she 
asked  the  church  to  pray  for  her  and  pray 
with  her.  One  Sunday  night,  this  woman, 
though  not  belonging  to  my  church,  came  to 
the  service,  and  at  the  close  went  down  to  the 
after-prayer  service.  She  took  a  seat  in  the 
Lower  Temple,  which  wras  already  well  filled. 
In  came  her  nephew  to  the  prayer  meeting, 
because  he  did  not  wish  to  go  to  his  own 
church  for  fear  of  meeting  his  aunt  there,  and 
he  took  the  only  seat  that  seemed  to  be  left  in 
the  entire  building,  and  that  was  right  along- 
side of  his  aunt!  Imagine  their  surprise  as 
they  looked  into  each  other's  faces,  and  imag- 
ine the  delight  of  the  aunt  that  the  boy  was 
returned  to  her  under  such  circumstances. 
The  young  man  said  to  me — and  aunt  and 
nephew  had  their  arms  around  each  other 
when  they  came  to  talk  to  me, — "I  have  been 
a  miserable  sinner ;  pray  for  me  that  I  might 

139 


UNUSED  POWERS 


be  forgiven."  That  is  all  I  know  of  that 
story,  except  that  a  good  Christian  lady  of 
many  years  of  service,  who  overheard  the  con- 
versation, said  to  me,  "My  prayers  are  never 
answered  like  that ;  I  never  get  such  answers ; 
the  Lord  does  not  seem  to  reply  ever  to  my 
prayers  at  all."  There  is  the  chief  difficulty 
in  our  praying.  We  pray  for  something,  and 
if  we  do  not  get  the  exact  object  we  refuse  to 
take  something  in  its  place. 

I  am  reminded  of  an  incident  I  once  heard 
an  evangelist  tell.  He  said  that  down  in 
West  Virginia  he,  or  some  other  friend,  was 
visiting  and  at  night  time  they  came  down  to 
the  stream  where  a  large  plank  was  removed, 
which  in  the  darkness  they  were  unable  to 
find,  and  they  said,  "We  must  travel  miles 
and  miles  to  get  around  this  stream";  and 
they  said,  "Father  took  away  that  plank!" 
Then  his  friend  said,  "If  father  took  away 
that  plank  he  put  it  down  somewhere  else.  It 
must  be  somewhere  up  the  stream  where  it  is 
not  so  dangerous.  I  am  sure  that  father 
would  not  take  that  plank  away  without  leav- 
ing us  something  in  its  place  with  which  to 
cross  the  stream."  When  they  investigated 
further  they  found  the  plank  was  moved  only 
a  few  feet  down  the  stream  where  they  could 

140 


cross  in  safety.  And  when  our  Heavenly 
Father  takes  away  a  plank,  He  naturally  puts 
it  somewhere  else,  in  some  safer  place  for  us 
to  cross.  Oh,  that  I  could  say  it  over  and 
over  until  all  of  us  could  get  this  great  truth 
into  our  characters. 

Mark  Twain,  in  the  account  of  one  of  his 
travels  up  the  Mississippi  River,  tells  of  the 
dredging  of  a  new  channel  above  St.  Louis 
with  which  the  steamer  captain  was  not  well 
acquainted.  One  night  one  of  them  ran  his 
vessel  aground  because  he  had  not  paid  atten- 
tion to  the  lights  which  showed  the  new  chan- 
nel. They  had  been  so  in  the  habit  of  going 
straight  up  the  river  that  they  kept  straight 
on  instead  of  following  the  new  channel.  For 
years  the  boatmen  passed  the  wreck  of  that 
boat  and  pointed  it  out  as  a  warning,  and 
said,  "If  the  captain  of  that  boat  had  paid 
attention  to  the  new  light,  and  had  been 
guided  thereby,  following  the  new  channel 
which  the  Government  provided,  there  would 
have  been  no  stranded  ship." 

Years  ago  when  I  was  in  Massachusetts,  I 
saw  the  great  building  of  Tremont  Temple 
burn  down.  When  fire  destroyed  Tremont 
Temple,  the  people  came  together  with  tears, 
said,  "It  is  of  no  use  trying  to  reconstruct 


UNUSED  POWERS 


that  building;  the  undertaking  would  be  too 
great;  it  would  cost  half  a  million  dollars; 
there  is  no  way  to  do  it."  I  remember  it  was 
almost  unanimous  in  Boston  with  the  Baptists 
that  Tremont  Temple  could  never  be  recon- 
structed because  it  was  too  great  an  undertak- 
ing, and  the  risk  was  too  great,  and  I  remem- 
ber one  man  saying  that  it  was  "tempting 
God"  to  try  to  rebuild  and  that  he  would  have 
nothing  more  to  do  with  it.  But  now,  because 
that  door  was  shut,  because  the  old  building 
burned  down,  because  of  the  inadequacy  of 
that  building  for  the  work  it  had  before  it, 
they  are  now  doing  a  much  greater  work. 
God  shut  one  door,  burned  down  one  building 
that  they  might  build  up  another  for  the 
greater  work  that  they  had  to  do, — one  of  the 
greatest  in  the  United  States,  and  in  the 
world.  Tremont  Temple  stands  today  with 
its  magnificent  buildings  because  God  pro- 
vided another  door  and  they  were  wise  enough 
to  see  that  door  was  open. 

Many  Christians  are  like  a  friend  who  a 
few  years  ago,  in  the  summer  time,  came 
home  to  the  city  and  rapped  at  my  door  late 
in  the  night.  When  I  went  to  the  window  he 
said,  "I  came  to  see  if  I  could  not  stay  with 
you;  I  cannot  get  into  my  house."  He  in- 

142 


UNUSED  POWERS 


sisted  on  sleeping  on  a  sofa  instead  of  ruffling 
up  a  bed,  and  early  in  the  morning  he  arose 
and  sent  down  to  his  sea-shore  place  for  the 
keys  to  his  house  in  the  city.  Instead  of  get- 
ting the  keys,  he  received  a  note  from  his  wife 
saying,  "I  put  the  key  in  your  trousers 
pocket."  But  to  him  it  was  a  strange  key. 
He  had  found  it  in  his  pocket  but  did  not 
recognize  it  as  the  back  door  key.  He  had 
tried  it  only  at  the  front  door,  and  as  it  was 
not  the  key  to  that  door,  he  concluded  it  was 
no  key  to  his  house  at  all. 

The  Christian  has  keys  to  God's  plans ;  to 
God's  house ;  to  God's  home,  but  we  are  carry- 
ing them  around  in  our  pockets  and  do  not 
use  them,  or  we  try  them  only  on  the  front 
door,  when  we  should  try  them  on  other  doors 
for  which  God  has  given  them. 

God  respects  our  liberty,  our  education,  our 
moral  forces,  and  He  does  not  act  with  that 
lightning-like  force  which  characterizes  some 
of  the  laws  of  nature.  But,  as  a  kind,  heav- 
enly Father,  He  always  answers  our  prayers. 
If  you  have  not  been  able  to  find  the  answer 
in  one  place,  it  is  because  if  you  will  look 
around  you  will  find  that  God  has  been 
answering  you  another  way. 


143 


IN  the  ninth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians, 
the  Apostle  Paul,  writing  to  the  church 
at  Corinth,  which  was  in  a  sense  the  apple 
of  his  eye,  said  to  them:  "Do  ye  not  know  that 
they  which  minister  about  holy  things  live  of 
the  things  of  the  temple,  and  they  which  wait 
at  the  altar  are  partakers  with  the  altar? 
Even  so  hath  the  Lord  ordained  that  they 
which  preach  the  gospel  should  live  of  the 
gospel.  But  I  have  used  none  of  the  things : 
neither  have  I  written  these  things,  that  it 
should  be  so  done  unto  me :  for  it  were  better 
for  me  to  die,  than  that  any  man  should  make 
my  glorying  void.  For  though  I  preach  the 
gospel,  I  have  nothing  to  glory  of:  for  ne- 
cessity is  laid  upon  me;  yes,  woe  is  unto  me, 
if  I  preach  not  the  gospel." 

I  desire  to  consider  the  thought  in  the 
fourteenth  verse  together  with  the  first  line 
of  the  fifteenth:  "The  Lord  hath  ordained 
that  they  which  preach  the  gospel  should  live 

144 


UNUSED  POWERS 


of  the  gospel.  But  I  have  used  none  of  these 
things." 

No  great  thing  was  ever  done  by  a  man 
who  was  working  for  pay.  None  of  the  great 
deeds  of  earth  were  ever  done  for  a  reward  in 
money.  That  life  is  a  wasted  life  that  is  sim- 
ply lived  for  wages.  That  man  is  a  hindrance 
to  the  world,  and  his  life  is  but  a  waste  of 
time,  who,  having  the  necessities  of  life,  is 
living  to  earn  money. 

The  church  at  Corinth  was  Paul's  especial 
care.  It  was  in  a  great  central  city,  next  to 
Rome  the  heart  of  the  commerce  of  the  known 
world.  It  was  a  very  difficult  place  in  which 
to  establish  a  church  of  Jesus  Christ  because 
the  world  had  brought  in  all  its  temptations 
into  that  center,  and  every  inducement  for 
people  to  leave  the  gospel  and  to  live  an  un- 
righteous life  was  there  exhibited.  But  the 
Apostle  Paul  determined  there  should  be  a 
church  in  Corinth,  and  he  entered  upon  that 
work  without  thought  of  earning  anything  for 
himself.  He  says  here  that  although  God  had 
ordained  that  a  man  should  live  by  the  gospel 
which  he  preaches,  yet  in  Corinth  he  had  never 
received  anything  from  them.  It  was  Paul's 
great  work :  it  was  the  crown  of  his  life. 

A  great  deed  was  that.    He  earned  his  own 

145 


UNUSED  POWERS 


living  working  with  the  needle  upon  tents. 
He  cared  for  himself  by  the  assistance  of 
friends,  in  other  places,  but  in  that  one  city  he 
would  receive  nothing.  He  set  forth  by  his 
example  the  great  truth  that  Jesus  was  ever 
teaching,  that  we  are  not  to  be  anxious  for 
our  food  or  clothing,  but  that  we  are  to  chiefly 
think  of  some  one  great  call  of  God  to  do 
some  great  duty  to  the  world,  without  per- 
sonal reward  for  ourselves.  That  is  Chris- 
tianity. That  distinguishes  a  Christian  from 
other  people,  in  this,  that  he  hath  something 
to  live  for  beside  earning  his  living. 

Those  of  you  who  have  been  agitated  by 
the  labour  questions  of  the  country — and  they 
are  serious — find  your  solution  of  the  great 
question  in  the  teaching  of  the  gospel  con- 
cerning the  relation  of  employer  to  employee 
— or  master  and  servant,  as  the  translation 
puts  it,  in  Paul's  letters.  The  servant  was  to 
be  as  a  brother,  not  to  be  looked  down  upon 
and  rejected,  for  having  a  certain  duty  to  do, 
he  should  be  honoured  in  doing  that  duty. 

One  of  the  greatest  achievements  of  mod- 
ern days  was  the  building  of  the  Panama 
Canal.  It  is  the  wonder  of  our  age.  It  has 
been  an  accomplishment  which  has  astonished 
the  most  scientific  and  the  most  optimistic 

146 


UNUSED  POWERS 


people.  It  has  been  accomplished  by  working 
out  the  gospel  in  the  employment  of  labour. 
The  most  marvelous  thing  about  that  canal  is 
not  so  much  the  great  ditch,  not  so  much  the 
transference  of  great  men-of-war  and  ships 
of  merchandise  from  one  ocean  to  the  other, 
as  it  is  the  solution  of  that  great  question  of 
the  relation  of  labour  to  capital,  of  employee 
to  employer.  When  Colonel  Goethals  went 
down  there,  a  large-hearted  but  decisive 
soldier,  he  adopted  a  principle  that  sets  forth 
just  what  Paul  is  teaching  here,  that  men 
should  not  labour  for  their  wages,  that  wages 
should  be  entirely  a  secondary  matter.  That 
it  is  a  necessary  matter  we  all  must  confess 
because  persons  must  live  in  order  to  work, 
but  that  their  work  should  be  for  their  em- 
ployer and  not  for  their  wages  is  clear  to  us 
all.  To  get  out  of  those  men  the  utmost  of 
their  endeavor  Colonel  Goethals  adopted  a 
very  simple  but  effective  plan.  Why  did  the 
people  working  on  the  Panama  Canal  ask 
Colonel  Goethals  for  the  privilege  of  working 
two  hours  longer  a  day?  Why  did  some  of 
them  insist  that  they  would  work  until  eleven 
o'clock  at  night  for  the  same  pay?  Why  did 
those  workmen  leave  their  work  with  such  re- 
luctance? Why  did  some  of  them  work  on 

147 


UNUSED  POWERS 


through  the  lunch  period?  Until  Colonel 
Goethals  forbade  it  they  often  worked  with- 
out their  dinner.  Why  did  they  do  all  these 
things  with  no  extra  pay? 

It  occurred  in  this  wise :  He  divided  up  the 
canal  into  three  sections.  Then  he  put  the 
same  number  of  men  on  each  section,  gave  to 
each  section  an  excellent,  noble  Christian  man 
in  spirit,  as  a  leader,  and  set  them  in  compe- 
tition with  each  other  to  see  which  party 
should  do  the  most.  Colonel  Goethals  put 
that  in  force  there,  and  each  section  of  that 
canal  has  been  anxious  to  throw  out  a  greater 
number  of  shovelfuls  of  earth  each  day  than 
the  other  sections.  The  competition  in  the 
building  of  the  canal  has  become  so  exciting, 
as  two  of  the  workmen  write  me,  that  they  all 
of  them  are  full  of  enthusiasm  and  determin- 
ation that  each  section  shall  at  least  equal  the 
other,  and  exceed  it  if  they  can.  In  this  build- 
ing of  the  canal  there  are  valuable  life  experi- 
ences. They  are  so  bound  together  that  they 
will  be  the  closest  of  friends  all  their  lives, 
just  as  soldiers  in  war,  when  marching  to- 
gether through  years  of  experience,  meeting 
the  same  battles  and  in  the  same  dangers  to- 
gether, sleeping  in  the  same  tents  and  eating 
the  same  food,  love  each  other  though  they 

148 


UNUSED  POWERS 


may  never  have  personally  met  until  fifty 
years  have  gone. 

When  we  meet  a  soldier  at  once  to  our 
hearts  he  comes  as  a  brother.  There  is 
nothing  more  sweet  to  us  old  men  than  to 
meet  comrades  who  were  in  the  Civil  war,  not 
for  money,  not  for  pension,  but  to  serve  his 
country.  So  in  the  building  of  the  Panama 
Canal  each  division  got  into  such  friendship 
with  each  other,  each  watching  the  other  and 
helping  the  other  in  his  work,  and  being  very 
careful  of  the  machinery  of  the  United  States, 
that  they  built  the  canal  for  at  least  $80,000,- 
000  less  than  it  would  have  cosi  without  that 
competition,  and  not  only  saving  the  people 
through  taxation,  but  bringing  friendship  and 
love  into  the  building  of  the  canal.  For  fifty 
years  to  come  the  friendships  made  there  in 
that  competition  will  affect  the  interests  of 
our  country,  and  certainly  the  interests  of 
the  people  who  are  there.  Fortunate  the 
man  who  has  had  an  opportunity  to  work 
digging  on  the  Panama  Canal  because  of 
that  very  good  natured  but  hearty  and  earn- 
est competition. 

Now  that  is  the  way  to  settle  the  labour 
question.  It  must  ultimately  come,  that  the 
workman  will  work  for  his  employer,  and  will 


UNUSED  POWERS 


be  ambitious  that  his  employer  should  suc- 
ceed beyond  other  employers.  There  will  be 
a  spirit  of  competition  about  the  factory  or 
shop,  and  he  will  take  such  an  interest  in  it 
that  he  will  watch  his  fellow  workmen,  en- 
courage them,  help  them,  and  try  to  work 
with  the  greatest  efficiency  in  that  place, 
thinking  first  of  his  employer  all  the  time. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  Christianity  has 
its  way,  the  employer  will  think  entirely  of  his 
employees.  The  whole  matter  of  profit  will 
become  secondary.  He  won't  need  to  think 
about  it  because  the  profit  will  take  care  of 
itself.  He  will  have  one  of  the  most  profit- 
able shops  in  the  world,  and  will  not  need  to 
worry  about  that.  The  finances  will  take 
care  of  themselves  if  he  seek  first  the  kingdom 
of  God.  Show  me  the  employer  who  works 
with  his  own  hands,  who  visits  his  workmen 
when  they  are  sick,  is  anxious  about  the  edu- 
cation of  their  children,  and  is  determined  that 
his  employees  shall  have  the  greatest  oppor- 
tunities in  the  world,  or  as  good  as  any  other 
employees  in  the  country,  and  I  will  show  you 
a  man — and  you  know  I  will — that  will  pros- 
per in  all  that  he  undertakes. 

It  is  the  principle  laid  down  by  the  apostle 
that  a  man  should  labour  not  for  wages,  for 

150 


UNUSED  POWERS 


he  is  a  contemptible,  mean  soul,  unworthy  of 
a  place  on  the  face  of  God's  earth,  who  works 
for  a  salary  alone. 

The  greatest  monumental  deeds  of  the 
world  are  those  that  have  been  done  by  men 
outside  their  profession  or  business,  aside 
from  their  daily  occupation.  The  one  great 
address  which  made  Daniel  Webster  the  idol 
of  America  and  the  admired  of  the  world  as  a 
mighty  orator,  was  made  at  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege. He  was  but  thirty-five  years  of  age, 
and  had  begun  to  get  his  education  very  late 
in  life.  He  was  an  unknown  lawyer,  and  had 
but  a  few  clients,  and  he  was  too  poor  to  buy 
an  overcoat  when  he  went  to  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege. They  asked  him  to  come  as  a  lawyer 
because  he  was  a  graduate,  and  when  by 
God's  providence  the  senior  counsel  could  not 
go,  Daniel  was  obliged  to  carry  the  brunt  of 
the  entire  case.  When  he  was  there  as  a  poor 
man  they  offered  him  a  fee,  and  he  said,  "I 
will  not  work  for  my  alma  mater  for  money. 
I  will  have  no  money  in  this  case.  I  am  here 
because  I  love  the  old  college,  and  because 
my  heart  is  here.  Don't  offer  me  any  money, 
not  a  penny,  not  even  my  expenses." 

He  then  delivered  that  great  oration  on 
Dartmouth  College,  before  the  Supreme 

151 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Court  of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,  and 
he  so  delivered  it  that  the  judges  wept  on  the 
bench,  and  the  audience  sank  into  a  reverent 
silence,  as  he  reached  the  peroration  of  that 
magnificent  address  which  gave  him  a  name 
and  fame  that  lasted  even  against  his  faults 
until  the  day  he  was  buried,  years  afterwards. 
The  great  thing  that  Daniel  Webster  did  was 
that  which  he  did  without  pay.  It  was  his 
great  monument.  The  same  could  be  said  of 
the  spirit  in  which  he  answered  Hayne,  when 
in  the  United  States  Senate  he  defended 
Massachusetts.  It  was  the  same  spirit  of  giv- 
ing up  one's  self,  abandoning  of  selfishness, 
forgetting  everything  only  the  cause  which  he 
represented,  and  throwing  himself  into  it  with 
an  entire  abandon  of  all  his  thought  of  other 
things,  that  made  Daniel  Webster  the  mighty 
orator.  If  he  had  worked  for  Dartmouth 
College  for  money,  and  if  in  his  poverty  he 
had  thought  of  the  money  he  would  have  been 
a  failure,  as  thousands  of  other  men  have  been 
who  have  attempted  to  do  the  same  thing. 

Charles  Sumner,  of  Massachusetts,  was  a 
man  who  in  the  days  of  my  youth  I  frequently 
saw.  He  was  a  very  dignified,  aristocratic 
kind  of  a  man.  Indeed  people  laughed  at 
him  after  he  had  graduated  from  college,  for 

152 


UNUSED  POWERS 


his  foppish  manners.  He  was  a  dude  of  the 
extreme  order.  He  dressed  in  flashy  attire, 
and  associated  only  with  the  exclusive  set  as 
he  was  of  a  wealthy  family.  He  went  to 
England,  where  he  was  proud  to  be  intro- 
duced to  lords  and  ladies,  and  he  came  home 
and  looked  down  upon  the  people  of  the 
United  States  as  being  very  primitive  and 
hardly  fit  associates  for  men  like  himself. 
There  was  no  more  foolish  aristocrat  in  the 
entire  State  of  Massachusetts  than  Charles 
Sumner.  He  was  laughed  at,  and  hated 
by  the  common  people  so  far  as  they  knew 
him. 

One  day  he  saw  the  soldiers  arrest  a  colored 
man  by  the  name  of  "Sim,"  and  he  followed 
the  crowd  down  State  Street  in  Boston,  until 
they  took  the  man  and  put  him  on  board  a 
vessel  for  Savannah,  Georgia,  which  took  that 
slave  home.  That  night  an  indignation  meet- 
ing was  held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  and  he  went  to 
the  meeting,  though  not  by  invitation.  He 
had  become  so  aroused  by  seeing  the  behav- 
iour of  the  police  and  the  soldiers,  and  had 
become  somehow  so  sympathetic  that  he  arose 
in  the  meeting  to  make  some  remarks.  They 
called  for  him  to  go  to  the  platform.  He 
went  up  to  the  platform  in  his  dudish  attire, 

153 


UNUSED  POWERS 


with  all  his  foreign  accents,  and  his  attempt 
to  be  like  an  English  lord.  But  before  he  had 
spoken  for  fifteen  minutes  his  natural  heart 
swept  away  all  those  barriers.  They  went 
down  before  his  real  soul,  and  Charles  Sum- 
ner  swept  out  into  great-hearted  manhood  as 
he  addressed  that  people,  and  gave  his  cele- 
brated "Mark  Antony  speech." 

He  was  honoured  throughout  all  his  life 
during  his  wonderful  service  of  his  country 
for  that  Mark  Antony  speech.  It  was  deliv- 
ered without  pay,  without  previous  medita- 
tion, without  expectation  of  delivering  such 
a  thing,  that  was  the  end  of  all  his  boasted 
preference  for  the  lords  and  ladies  of  Eng- 
land. He  broke  out  for  the  poor  slave,  and 
swept  to  the  other  extreme,  and  became  the 
leader  of  anti-slavery  in  Massachusetts. 
Then  he  became  the  senator  from  Massachu- 
setts, then  the  leader  of  the  great  party  that 
ruled  the  country,  and  then  the  most  intimate 
friend  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  all  through  that 
Mark  Antony  speech.  He  made  many  other 
speeches  in  other  places.  He  wrote  with 
great  care,  he  used  English  with  great  precis- 
ion, nicety,  and  artistic  beauty.  But  those 
addresses  no  one  remembers.  It  is  the  one  he 
gave  without  hope  of  pay,  abandoning  him- 

154 


UNUSED  POWERS 


self  entirely,  which  lives  in  the  memory  of  his 
countrymen. 

By  what  do  we  remember  William  of 
Orange,  Prince  of  Nassau,  whose  romantic 
history  in  saving  the  Netherlands  from  the 
Inquisition  is  still  the  admiration  of  the 
world?  Is  it  because  he  was  a  prince,  inherit- 
ing a  throne?  Is  it  because  he  was  an  edu- 
cated man?  Is  it  because  he  bore  titles?  Is 
it  because  he  fought  great  battles?  Is  it  be- 
cause he  saved  Holland  from  the  Inquisition 
and  the  flood?  It  is  because  the  man  gave 
himself  utterly  to  it.  He  gave  up  everything 
personal  for  the  cause  of  religious  freedom, 
and  surrendered  his  estates  to  be  sold.  He 
assailed  Charles  V  and  met  him  with  triumph 
on  the  fields  of  battle,  until  the  assassin  struck 
him  down  in  that  palace  in  the  Netherlands. 
We  remember  him  for  his  unselfish  devotion 
to  a  mighty  cause,  and  because  he  received 
no  money. 

The  Apostle  Paul  is  setting  forth  this 
thought,  and  we  too  in  our  conscience  have  a 
call  of  God  to  do  something  unselfish.  Breth- 
ren and  sisters,  however  humble  you  may 
think  your  life  is,  however  retired  it  may  be, 
as  sure  as  God  is  God, — just  so  sure  the  call 
of  God  comes  in  your  conscience  to  do  some- 

155 


UNUSED  POWERS 


thing  special,  something  for  which  you  are  not 
paid,  that  will  require  some  sacrifice  of  yours 
in  order  that  you  may  obey  the  call  of  God. 
Every  man's  conscience  is  the  voice  of  God, 
and  when  your  conscience  tells  you  that  you 
ought  to  do  this  thing,  you  should  do  it  how- 
ever humble  it  may  be.  It  is  the  call  of  God  to 
,  do  these  greater  things,  these  unselfish  things. 

You  have  often  heard  of  Professor  Agas- 
siz,  the  great  Christian  scholar,  the  keenest 
scientist  Harvard  College  has  ever  seen.  On 
one  occasion  he  was  invited  to  lecture,  and 
he  wrote  to  the  committee  that  he  had  no 
time  to  earn  money.  His  heart  was  with  the 
students,  and  his  desire  to  cultivate  in  the 
students  a  Christian  knowledge  of  God's  laws 
in  nature.  They  offered  him  large  sums  if  he 
would  go  and  lecture,  and  he  said,  "No  time 
have  I  to  earn  money."  Harvard  College  has 
its  greatest  treasure,  not  in  its  immense  coli- 
seum, not  in  its  wonderful  buildings,  not  in 
its  twenty  millions  of  endowment,  but  in  the 
life  and  reputation  of  such  great  men  as  Pro- 
fessor Agassiz. 

If  I  were  to  search  the  history  of  the  world, 
and  ask  you  to  examine  it,  you  would  find  the 
apostle  was  right,  that  the  greatest  things  are 
done  by  those  who  do  not  work  for  pay. 


UNUSED  POWERS 


If  you  look  at  the  history  of  the  great  men 
and  women  of  the  world  you  are  finding  ever 
that  the  chief  thing  they  did  was  something 
entirely  outside  their  usual  calling.  Such  was 
the  case  with  Mauritius  and  Leonidas  of 
Greece,  such  the  case  of  Fabius,  and  Scipio  of 
Rome,  of  Wallace  and  Bruce  of  Scotland,  of 
Tell  and  Huber,  of  Joan  of  Arc,  Hemy  IV, 
Lafayette,  Cur  ran,  Emmett,  Grattan,  Pirn, 
Hampden,  Washington,  Adams,  Hamilton, 
Grant,  Lee,  Lincoln,  Garfield.  All  are  noted 
for  doing  something  they  were  called  by  their 
consciences  to  do  that  required  them  to  leave 
the  usual  occupations  of  their  lives. 

Girard  College  stands  out  there  as  a  mag- 
nificent monument  to  Girard.  What  is  it  but 
a  monument  to  what  he  did  on  one  side?  It 
was  not  his  business  to  educate  orphans.  It 
was  not  connected  with  it,  it  was  outside,  it 
was  something  his  conscience  called  him  to  do. 
It  was  a  distinct  call  of  God.  The  great 
monument  to  him  is  not  the  business  he  did, 
not  the  ships  that  now  have  decayed,  not  the 
money  that  he  had  invested  in  other  enter- 
prises, but  entirely  on  that  side  issue. 

If  we  look  at  it  we  find  the  same  was  true 
of  Andrew  Carnegie.  He  was  not  a  manu- 
facturer of  steel.  He  knew  nothing  about  the 

157 


manufacture  of  iron,  having  attained  wealth 
in  other  directions.  He  turned  into  that  busi- 
ness with  sympathy,  as  he  says,  for  the  work- 
ing people,  and  the  great  opportunity  he  saw 
to  furnish  countless  thousands  with  occupa- 
tion, although  it  turned  out  in  the  end,  as  is 
often  the  case,  that  without  any  effort  on  his 
part,  without  any  other  different  labour,  it  in- 
creased his  millions,  yet  it  was  an  attempt  to 
do  something  outside  of  his  previous  profes- 
sion. Then  he  spent  his  days  giving  away  his 
money. 

I  have  read  the  story  of  James  Lick,  of 
California,  and  I  have  been  interested  very 
much  in  that,  having  been  to  the  wonderful 
observatory  which  he  set  up  fifty  miles  south- 
east of  San  Francisco.  The  great  Lick  tele- 
scope, which  was  the  largest  in  the  world,  was 
built  by  him  by  money  he  gave  to  it  while  he 
lived.  James  Lick  was  a  very  plain,  earnest, 
self-giving  man,  who  was  curious  and  ec- 
centric in  many  ways,  but  when  he  had  at- 
tained unto  wealth,  he  said,  "I  want  to  do 
something  different  from  business.  I  want 
to  be  something  different  from  a  miller,  some- 
thing else  than  a  merchant  or  manufacturer." 

I  can  use  but  one  other  illustration,  because 
I  believe  in  closing  on  time  always,  but  in 

158 


UNUSED  POWERS 


connection  with  this  it  comes  so  prominent 
that  I  need  to  mention  Leland  Stanford,  who 
established  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior  Uni- 
versity that  has  $20,000,000,  in  California, 
near  San  Francisco,  at  Palo  Alto.  He  was 
an  acquaintance  of  Lick's,  and  when  Lick 
began  to  give  toward  different  things  Leland 
Stanford  began  to  be  interested  in  it.  Again 
and  again  Leland  Stanford,  while  he  was  a 
Senator  of  the  United  States,  was  saying  to 
himself,  "I  have  nothing  to  live  for.  I  have 
no  children."  Having  nothing  to  live  for,  he 
did  not  spend  his  millions,  and  they  accumu- 
lated very  rapidly.  He  put  a  million  of  dol- 
lars into  a  private  house,  and  dwelt  in  it,  but 
it  was  not  a  home  to  him.  "Nothing  to  live 
for." 

But  one  night  in  a  dream — if  it  was  a 
dream — his  son  appeared  to  him  by  the  early 
morning  light,  and  said:  "Father,  never  say 
again  that  you  have  nothing  to  live  for.  Live 
for  humanity,  live  for  other  people's  chil- 
dren." Then  the  vision  disappeared.  Stan- 
ford always  believed  to  his  death  that  he  had 
seen  the  spirit  of  his  son.  Then  the  call  of 
God  came  to  do  all  he  did,  as  he  did.  I  have 
not  time  to  go  further,  but  you  can  read  the 
life  of  Leland  Stanford,  who  established  the 

159 


UNUSED  POWERS 


Leland  Stanford  Junior  University,  with  its 
$20,000,000,  in  California.  It  is  an  institu- 
tion that  is  a  model,  with  all  that  is  advanced 
and  best  in  education.  Stanford  built  it  from 
an  unselfish  desire  to  serve  humanity,  and  he 
put  his  son's  name  upon  it  because  he  believed 
that  his  son  did  call  upon  him  to  love  human- 
ity and  to  take  other  people's  children  into  his 
heart  as  he  had  done  his  own  son.  He  and 
Mrs.  Stanford  were  the  devoted  Christian 
servants  of  the  poor,  the  orphan,  and  the  suf- 
fering, and  left  all  their  property  to  go  on 
doing  good  to  the  rising  generation.  That 
great  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University,  the 
admiration  of  all  the  educated  world,  and  an 
honour  to  the  United  States  of  America,  was 
an  outside  deed,  done  as  the  Apostle  Paul  did 
at  Corinth,  not  for  pay,  and  without  hope  of 
earthly  gain,  but  because  in  his  conscience  he 
heard  the  call  of  God.  None  of  you  are  an 
exception  to  the  call. 


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